


Missing (Redux)

by ZombieBabs



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, Drug Withdrawal, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Past Child Abuse, Psychics Being Psychic--Reluctant or Otherwise, Romance, Slow Burn, season three never happened
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-08-07 01:21:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 25,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16398692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombieBabs/pseuds/ZombieBabs
Summary: Dr. Richard Strand is missing. It's up to Alex Reagan to find him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A long, long time ago I wrote Missing. Since then, I've always felt like there was more I could do to improve it. This version will likely vary from the original, which I will leave up for archival purposes. Tags & characters will be updated as chapters are updated, so as not to spoil plot. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy. :)
> 
> Also, this story was inspired by the prompt: "How can I trust you" from the #fictober18 list.

The world flickers in and out of focus. Darkness. Light. Silence. Sound. It rushes forward and recedes, like waves upon a beach. 

In. Out.

In.

Out.

Richard Strand opens his eyes, slitted against the stab of pain in his head. He tries to shift limbs gone numb, but cannot move.

A shadow falls over him. Something pinches the skin of his arm. Cold crawls through his veins.

All goes black, retreating back again into the sea of void.

 

Alex Reagan approaches the door to Richard Strand’s house, the bottle of wine in one hand swinging at her side with every step. She smiles and tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She tucks the back of her dress down and smooths over the skirt, ridding it of imagined wrinkles. 

Alex takes a deep breath to settle her nerves. Her meeting with Strand is business, as usual. No need to feel nervous.

It’s not like this is a _date_. 

Even if she _did_ spend an hour in front of her mirror, trading out outfits until she decided on a casual-yet-not-too-casual dress. Even if she _did_ put on more makeup than usual. Even if she traded out her usual flats for a pair of strappy heels. 

It’s nothing more than dinner, while they discuss the Black Tapes.

Alex knocks on the door.

She waits.

And waits.

Frowning, Alex knocks again.

No answer.

Alex places the bottle of wine on the ground. She unzips her purse and pulls out her phone. No missed messages.

She thumbs over Strand’s number in her contacts. She watches the door as she holds the phone to her ear, listening to it ring.

It goes to voicemail.

Alex hangs up. She sends three texts in a row:

_Hey._

_I’m outside._

_You there?_

Her heart pounds, but for a different reason now. She parked next to his car in the driveway—he must be home. But if Strand were home, he would have answered the door.

Unless something happened.

Alex knocks at the front door, each rap of her knuckles swifter than the one previous, until— 

The lock disengages. The door swings open.

Richard Strand, standing in the doorway in slacks and a white button down, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, feet barefoot, frowns at her. “Alex? Is something the matter?”

Alex resists the urge to laugh in pure relief. “You weren’t answering. I guess I—no, nothing’s the matter.”

She picks up the bottle of wine and holds it up as an offering. “I brought wine. Can I come in?”

Strand steps back, allowing her to enter. He shuts and locks the door behind her. “I’m sorry. I heard your initial knock, but I was dealing with a minor crisis in the kitchen.”

Alex hangs her purse on the hook by the front door and follows Strand through the house, the path familiar to her. “Crisis?”

“I may have gotten...distracted. Unfortunately, we may need to order our dinner out.”

“You burned it?”

Strand half-turns so she can see the smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “Quite spectacularly.”

Alex laughs. “What had you so distracted?”

He says “Research,” but the way he ducks his head when he does so makes Alex think he means something else. Her heart skips a beat before she can tell it to calm down.

The kitchen isn’t so much in shambles, except for the burnt remains of a saucepan and a recently discharged fire extinguisher. The fan over the stove whirs, set at full power. The window over the sink is open, letting in some of the air from the back garden. 

“I’m surprised your fire alarm didn’t go off,” Alex says, inspecting the pan.

Strand glares at the alarm on the ceiling. “It should have. I had them all replaced as soon as I moved into the house.”

“Maybe the batteries were bad?”

“Perhaps,” Strand says. He shakes his head. “I’ll have to check them later. For now, what would you like to eat?”

They spend the next few minutes debating the merits of a handful of restaurants, eventually settling on one of Alex’s favorite Italian places. 

Strand pours them each a glass of wine. They settle on one of the sofas in the family room.

Alex takes a sip of wine.

Strand takes his own sip.

Alex smiles. She tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

“I—”

“So—”

They both stop. They laugh at their sudden awkwardness. 

“You first,” Alex says.

“No, you,” Strand says. “I insist.”

Alex takes another sip of wine as heat crawls up the back of her neck. “So, um—”

_Bang. Bang. Bang._

Both Alex and Strand look up. 

“Was that the front door?” Alex asks. “It’s way too early for our food to be here. Are you expecting someone else?”

Strand shakes his head.

_Bangbangbangbangbang._

Strand stands and peers through the curtains. He turns back to Alex, something in his expression guarded. “Stay here.”

“What?” Alex asks. She’s half-way out of her seat already. “What do you mean, ‘stay here?’”

“It’s probably nothing,” Strand says. “Please. Just, stay here.”

“I don’t understand.”

Strand holds up a hand, asking for silence. Slowly, carefully, he makes his way to the front door. He disengages the lock and swings the door open.

Alex can’t hear anything more than the rumble of voices. She places her wineglass on a table and creeps over to the window.

Two men stand on the porch, both wearing tailored suits. One of the men holds a gun. The other holds what looks like a police baton.

Alex’s blood goes cold. She holds a hand over her mouth, to keep herself from screaming.

The man with the police baton reers it back and strikes. He steps backward to catch the tall form of Strand as he tumbles into the man’s arms, out cold.

“Fuck,” Alex whispers against the palm of her hand. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Alex ducks away from the window. Her phone is in her purse. She can’t get to it, not now, not without potentially alerting someone to her presence. Strand, thankfully, is a man who insists on having a house phone. If she can just make it into the kitchen, she can grab the phone, and lock herself in the basement.

With a brief look out the window, Alex catches a glimpse of the men hefting Strand between them. She crouches and with a deep breath to steel herself, dashes through the house to the kitchen. She snatches the phone from its dock and bursts through the door leading to the basement. She closes it and locks it. Only then does she halt her breathing and listen.

Footsteps thudding through the house. Alex presses her ear to the door.

“—two cars—” 

“—could have sworn—” 

The doorknob turns, catching on the lock. The wood of the door groans as weight is pressed against it.

“—come on—boss—waiting—”

The weight disappears. The doorknob is released. The footsteps retreat. 

Alex sinks to sit on the steps leading into the basement. She waits with the phone clutched in her hands, counting seconds, before she dials.

“Nine-one-one, state your emergency.”

“My name is Alex Reagan. I’d like to report a kidnapping.” 


	2. Chapter 2

Richard Strand stands in front of the mirror in his bedroom. He holds a cobalt blue tie in one hand and a deep royal purple tie in the other. He brings the blue tie up to his chest. Simple. Sensible. He brings the purple tie up to replace the blue one. Dignified. Professional.

Blue. He’ll go with the blue.

Or, on second thought, the purple.

Or—no. He’s being ridiculous. He tosses both ties onto the bed in the center of the room, made with military precision. He’s having dinner with Alex. A _business_ dinner. Better to forsake the tie altogether. And the jacket.

He wrestles himself out of the suit jacket and lays it on the bed. He eyes his reflection, still unsatisfied. 

Experimentally, he rolls up a sleeve. Too casual? 

He rolls up the other sleeve. He gives a three-quarter turn, inspecting every crisp, clean line of his button down and slacks.

Strand stops and nearly rolls his eyes at his reflection. He's behaving like a teenager with a crush. He’ll meet Alex as he is. To discuss the Black Tapes. Nothing more. Nothing less.

 

“It’s been days,” Alex Reagan says into the phone. “You have to have some kind of lead by now. Please, if you know _anything_.” She pauses, listening to the voice on the other end of the line. “No, please, don’t put me on hold—”

She curses and rocks back in her chair, hand clenched around the receiver. “Not the fuckagain.”

Richard Strand has been missing for 72 hours.

And counting.

 

The call comes as Strand preps ingredients for dinner. He sets the knife down on the cutting board, rinses his hands, and wipes them dry on the towel hanging artfully from one of the cabinets.

He swipes to answer the phone buzzing against the countertop and brings it to his ear. “Hello.”

“Richard,” says a familiar voice. “How are you?”

Strand frowns. “Braun. To what do I owe the displeasure of this call? Or, would it be more accurate to to ask how much I owe you for this call?”

Braun laughs. “Typically, it’s the client who calls the psychic.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t. In any case, I called to offer some friendly advice. Free of charge, of course.”

Strand clenches down on his knee jerk response. They are not friends. And Braun can stick his advice—

“Somewhere the sun doesn’t shine?” Braun asks, humor in his voice.

“Your parlor tricks have no effect on me. I’m hanging up.”

“Don’t,” Braun says, quickly, urgently. “Richard, I know you don’t believe me, but, in this instance, it would behoove you to listen, at least.”

Strand balances the phone between his shoulder and ear. He picks up the knife and continues where he left off chopping a red bell pepper. “Fine. Speak.”

“Cancel your plans with Ms. Reagan tonight. Go to a hotel. Don’t tell anyone your whereabouts.”

Strand frowns. “You’re losing your edge. Alex posted earlier on her twitter page that she and I would be meeting today to work on the podcast.”

“No, Richard. I’m serious. As in life or death. You need to get out of that house and not tell anyone where you’re going. Or do you really want to put Alex in danger?”

“What manner of danger are you proposing?”

“They’re coming, Richard. They’re tired of watching and and they’re tired of waiting. They’re going to make their move and you need to be far away when they come for you.”

Strand’s knife slips, sending red bell pepper flying over the cutting board. He lays the knife down and steps away from the counter. He glances at the door to the basement.

“No security system is going to save you, Richard. I don’t care how expensive or top of the line. You know they can hack it. They’ve tricked you into believing you were safe before.”

Strand shakes his head. Anger surges up. He _knew_ letting Alex air his secret—the fact he and his family have been stalked his entire life—on her podcast would lead to something like this. Charlatans would forever seek to profit from another person’s misfortune. “I’m hanging up. Goodbye, Braun.”

“Bye, Richard. Oh? And keep a fire extinguisher handy, will you?”

Strand stabs at the screen of his phone to end the call. He shoves it into his pocket.

 

Frantic fists knock at his front door as Strand puts out the last of the fire. He sets the extinguisher on a counter and looks at the alarm with a deep frown.

He was in the basement, double, triple checking the security system when the chicken cacciatore burned.

The fire alarm, wired into the security system, did not go off.

It should have gone off. Even with the window open, there was enough smoke to set off the alarm.

It’s nothing. Braun’s call meant _nothing_. Strand will call the security company later and have them send over a technician. He’ll find out it was wired incorrectly by the fresh-faced kid who set up the system. He’ll insist the house be re-checked by someone with more experience.

After he finds out why Alex is pounding on his front door as if being chased by veritable hounds of hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sort of a short chapter, but I'm already in the middle of the next one. :)
> 
> Also, I'm experimenting with the chronology of the piece, so hopefully it isn't too confusing for anyone to jump back and forth.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween!

The peace of the void washes away, leaving behind only pain.

His eyes flutter open. His glasses are missing. Without them the world is a whirl of indistinct shapes and muddy color. Strand tries to lift his head, but it only lolls against his shoulder, too heavy for him to lift. 

“Aw, look, Chris. He’s awake.”

“Would ya look at that? He is. Rise and shine, Strand, old boy!”

Fingers clench in Strand’s hair. They wrench his head back, holding it in place. The grip pulls on the wound on Strand’s head, where he was first struck with a baton. He groans.

Only for the breath to be knocked out of him when a fist is planted in his stomach. Strand struggles to pull in air, but can’t work his lungs. 

Rationally, he knows his diaphragm is paralyzed, and also that it’s temporary, but that doesn’t stop panic from creeping up while he burns with the need to take in oxygen.

The men laugh, watching Strand struggle until finally, he coughs and takes greedy gulps of air. “What—what do you want from me?”

“Same thing we told you the day before. And the day before that. Tell us what we know and, _well_ , we probably won’t let you go, but maybe we can see to it you don’t _linger_ , if you know what I mean.”

The man’s voice swirls in Strand’s head. He reaches for the memory of _before_ , but it slips through his fingers like water from a dark, dark well. Back into the void.

“I don’t know,” Strand says. Even the words are hard to grasp. “I don’t know.”

The second man says, “We think you do. C’mon, Strand. We can do this fast or we can do this slow. So far, you got the boss on your side. Doesn’t want you dead—not yet, anyway. He thinks you can be reasoned with, unlike your father. But the longer you drag this out, well, the faster the boss loses patience. And you won’t like him when he’s impatient.”

“He likes his results,” continues the first man. “He’s a real results man.”

“Who—”

The first man _tsks_ , interrupting Strand. “Looks like he’s just not paying attention, Chris.”

“We could probably do something about that,” Chris says, tone almost bored.

“We probably could,” the first man says. 

The chair Strand is tied to—How did he not notice the ropes digging into his skin until now?— receives a savage kick, knocking Strand to the floor. The fuzzy approximation of a boot enters Strand’s limited vision. It reers back and connects with Strand’s ribs with an internal _crunch_.

Strand gasps in pain.

Another boot joins the first.

Strand loses track of everything but the pain.

 

The call comes from the reception desk. Alex, waiting for news, _any_ news, slams at the button to put it on speaker. “Hello?”

“Hi, Alex,” Martha says. “I’ve got a visitor for you.”

Alex sits up in her chair, heart pounding. “A visitor? Is it the SPD?”

“Mm, no. Not the police. He’s a rather tall gentleman. He says his name is Tannis Braun?”

“Tannis Braun?”

“He says he knows you. From your show? He says has information about Dr. Strand. Should I tell him to make an appointment?”

“ _No_ ,” Alex says, a little too quickly. She takes a breath. “I mean, no. You can buzz him through. Wait, actually, no, it’s fine. I’ll just meet him in the lobby. Just—don’t let him disappear, okay?”

“Okay,” Martha says, drawing out the word in what sounds like concern. Muffled, she says, “She’ll be right with you, Mr. Braun.”

Alex hits the button to end the call. Without wasting any time, she leaps from her chair. Like the track runner she used to be back in high school, Alex sprints through the studio offices, ducking and dodging around each unfortunate person to be in her way.

She arrives breathless. Tannis, sitting on one of the sofas along the wall, stands. He lacks the carefree smile he’d sported the last time she’d seen him. His brown eyes hold none of the sparkle she’d found so charming during their hike through the woods.

He looks a lot like he did when he claimed to be overwhelmed by the darkness inside the cabin.

“Hello, Alex.”

“Hi,” she says, fighting to get her breath back. “You said you had information about Strand. What do you know?”

“Straight to business, then,” he says with a thin smile, thrusting his hands into his pockets.

“What do you know?” Alex repeats, an edge in her voice.

“You’re right. This is a very serious matter. How about you show me to your office, so we can discuss—“ 

“They took him,” Alex says. “I saw them take him. If you know _anything_ , please, you have to tell me.”

He approaches her, hand ready to do something stupid, like clap her on the shoulder and tell her to calm down, but he must think better of it, because he drops his hand. 

“It’s been four days,” Alex says, hands clenched at her sides. She hasn’t let herself think about it. She hasn’t _stopped_ thinking about it. “We’re wasting time.”

“I’ll tell you everything I know,” Tannis says. “I promise. But it isn’t safe to speak out in the open.”

Alex grits her teeth against the urge to shake the information out of him. “Fine. Did Martha give you a badge?”

He flashes the visitor’s badge clipped to the hem of his sweater.

Alex leads him back through the offices, avoiding the concerned stare of her coworkers. It’s enough that they all know about Strand’s disappearance. It’s enough that they have been walking on eggshells around her since the news dropped. It’s another thing entirely to see the pity in their eyes after she sprinted like a madwoman through the studio only to return with a goddamned _psychic_ in tow.

When they reach her office, Alex motions for him to sit at one of the chairs in front of her desk. She closes the door and sinks heavily into her own chair. “Okay, spill it. I need to know everything. Where is he? Where did they take him? Why did the take him? And why haven’t you gone to the police.”

“I can’t answer the where,” Tannis says.

Alex rises a little in her chair, frustration simmering into anger beneath her skin.

“But,” he continues, before she can erupt, “I can tell you the why. And I can tell you the whom.”

Alex settles back, but her hands grip at the arms of her chair. “Go on.”

“Strand told you his secret. The one about his family being hounded by stalkers his entire life. What he didn’t say is it’s a little more complicated than that.”

“Complicated, how?”

“He’ll deny it to his grave, but Richard knows who is stalking him. Coralee must have confirmed it, the last time you met. In fact, it’s rather obvious, if you think about it—”

“ _Who_?”

“The Cenophaes, of course. They tried to take Richard on that ill-fated meeting with Thomas Warren, but Coralee and her team were able to keep them away from you.”

“The Cenophaes,” Alex says, voice dripping with disdain. “You’re telling me a bunch of _monks_ have been stalking Strand and his family? For decades?” 

“A certain faction,” Tannis says, “yes. That’s exactly what I’m telling you.” 

Alex narrows her eyes at him. “Okay. Say I believe you. Why would they take him? Why now?”

Tannis crosses his legs and settles his hands in his lap. He nods, as if used to the scrutiny. “There has been a war waging between two groups for the last twenty years. It started when Howard Strand realized what Thomas Warren planned for Richard. He died protecting his son and passed on that duty upon his death. To Coralee Strand.”

“So, you’re telling me that billionaire and philanthropist, Thomas Warren, is actually part of the Order of the Cenophaes. You’re saying Howard Strand worked for him, up until he realized some kind of diabolical plan Warren had involving Strand. And you’re saying Coralee Strand, who faked her death twenty years ago, did so because she had to take up Howard Strand’s post as Strand’s protector. You realize how all of this sounds, right?”

“I do,” Tannis says.

Alex takes a deep breath, searching for objectivity. “And you know all of this because? Don’t tell me it’s because you’re psychic.”

Tannis smiles. “Ah. No. It’s not because I’m psychic.”

“Then, how?”

“Coralee Strand told me.”


	4. Chapter 4

Rain falls, each heavy drop hitting the windshield of Tannis Braun’s rented SUV with a loud _plink_ before being swept away by overworked wipers. Alex sits in the passenger seat, her arms crossed over her chest.

“We’re here,” Tannis says, unnecessarily.

Here is a house in the suburbs, one of a hundred identical houses, with not even a lawn gnome to distinguish it from the rest. The facade is a cheery yellow, with bright white accents. The lawn has been freshly mowed and there are pink and purple flowers planted in a bed just below the front window. A nondescript silver camry sits parked in front of them on the driveway.

Tannis seems to realize Alex needs a moment to process, because he unbuckles his seatbelt, but doesn’t move to exit the SUV. He sits back in his seat with an expectant look on his handsome face.

“You say you can find Strand,” she says, finally, turning in her seat to face him more fully. “How can I trust you?” 

“I haven’t lied to you, yet,” he says, simply. 

“So, I’m just supposed to believe you?”

Amusement sparks in his brown eyes. “Isn’t that the central question of your podcast? ‘Do you believe?’”

Alex bristles. “That’s not fair. Strand’s life is in danger. I can’t waste time following around a psychic who claims he can find him when I could be following more promising leads.”

“What leads?” he tosses back. “The police don’t have any leads. And they won’t find any. Not when the Cenophaes are involved.”

“So, I’m stuck.”

Tannis tilts his head, a slight smile on his face. “Or you could follow me inside.”

Inside meaning the supposed safe house where Coralee Strand waits to confirm Tannis Braun’s story. Alex looks from Tannis to the house. She tugs the hood of her raincoat over her head. She reaches for the door handle and pulls.

 

“Wait,” Alex says. “Coralee Strand _told_ you?”

Tannis uncrosses his legs and recrosses them the opposite way. “She did.”

“Why? How?”

Alex’s phone rings. Nic’s name flashes across the display. Annoyed, Alex picks the phone up and drops it back in its cradle. 

“A long time ago, I stumbled into something I was not supposed to stumble into. The Coralee Strand case was still fresh. I recognized Richard’s name from the media circuits. He’d just released his first book. I had yet to make a name for myself, and I thought I could throw my own hat into the investigation, so to speak.”

“Was that around the time you won the auction for his father’s belongings from the university?” Alex interrupts.

“Howard Strand died three years before Coralee’s disappearance, but the auction wasn’t held until much later. First, the university put his effects in storage, where they were promptly forgotten about. It took months after they were remembered for the university to contact Richard, and another few months to plan the auction after he told them where they could stick his father’s things. By that time, I was already well involved with the...situation.”

“And what situation was that?”

“I found Coralee Strand.”

Alex reminds herself to breathe, but only after she picks her jaw up from the floor. “You _found_ her? You knew she was alive the entire time?”

Tannis smiles. “She swore me to secrecy, of course. And I’ve been working for her, ever since. She’s the one who encouraged me to place a bid on that box of Howard Strand’s books, actually. And to send Richard the tape. You remember the one.”

“The one with him and his sister. And the Tall Men,” Alex says. She sits back in her chair and chews on her bottom lip, digesting the information. 

“Well, fuck,” she says, finally.

Tannis laughs.

“Now what? What are our next steps?”

“You come with me,” Tannis says. “We rescue Richard. And possibly save the world along with him.”

 

Coralee Strand opens the front door before Alex can knock. She steps back into the darkness of the foyer and waves Alex and Tannis inside the house.

Alex looks behind her at the tall form of Tannis, who nods. She turns around and steps over the threshold into chaos. 

Alex expected to find Coralee alone, but the house is full of people. The open-floor living room and dining room area resembles a command center, with folding picnic tables groaning under the weight of computers, printers, books, and stacks of file folders. Along the walls are maps with documents and multi-colored push-pins connected with red yarn. People with haggard faces type frantically at the computers, or rush to add to the wall of maps. Several of them look at Alex when they enter, but the return quickly to their work.

“Have you made any headway?” Tannis asks Coralee.

“Not yet.” Coralee says. She smiles, crookedly. “I might just need your talents, after all.”

Tannis claps Coralee on the shoulder. “I’m going to go make some coffee. You look like you could use it.”

He navigates through the house, toward a small kitchen, leaving Alex alone with Coralee.

Coralee rubs at her face, as if she can massage away some of the exhaustion there. Alex knows the feeling. She’s tried it a few times herself and it never works.

Coralee sighs. “I wish I could give you good news, Alex.”

Alex gives the other woman a tired smile. “Me, too. You have a pretty impressive set-up here.”

“Thank you. It’s temporary, but it’s safe.”

What must Coralee’s life be like, the leader of a splinter faction of an organization whose purpose is to save the world from a demonic apocalypse? Living her life in hiding, in constant danger? Having her ex-husband kidnapped by a cult of monks bent on the destruction of the world? “What do you need me to do?”

“Nothing that’s not already being done by someone on my team.”

Alex shakes her head. “I have to do _something_. I feel like I’ve been sitting on my hands for days, Coralee. Please, let me help.”

“You will. We’re close, I think. We’ll need Tannis to get us the rest of the way, but we’ll need _you_ , Alex, once we’ve found Richard. He’ll need someone he trusts.”

“He’s in pain,” Tannis says, returning from the kitchen juggling three mismatched mugs of coffee.

Coralee frowns, but takes one of the mugs from Tannis. Tannis hands a mug to Alex, who wraps her hands around the ceramic.

“How do you know?” Alex says.

“We knew they would resort to violence,” Coralee says and sighs.

At the same time, Tannis rubs at one of his ribs and says, “I dreamt it.”

Alex’s grip tightens around her mug.

“We’ll find him, Alex,” Coralee says. She walks away, toward the command center, head held high, shoulders a tense line.

Alex watches Coralee’s team work, feeling altogether more useless than she did at the start.

 

The world becomes void and pain. Void and pain. Each time Strand surfaces, he gasps his way through it, unable to even take a breath without agony.

He thinks there are others in the room with him, but he cannot focus. There is a scuffle. There is shouting. There are screams. There is begging. There are gunshots. And then there is nothing, once again. 

Strand sinks into blessed darkness and wonders if he will drown in it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick reminder to those of us in the States: Go out and vote!! :)


	5. Chapter 5

Alex sits in the corner, tucked out of the way of Coralee’s team. She holds her coffee mug, made of hand-painted ceramic with a chip along the rim, in both hands. The coffee inside it has long gone cold. She watches, nothing more than an observer, as Coralee’s people work to find Strand.

Alex aches to ask them questions, to find out what progress they’ve made, if they have an estimate for how much longer it will take, but she clamps down on the urge. If she starts, she won’t be able to stop. Not until they find him.

Tannis and Coralee speak in hushed voices, hunched over a computer screen. They both look at Alex, then back to the screen. They talk some more, words no more than a murmur over the frantic keystrokes of those around them. Alex does her best to ignore them, feeling like an outsider. They assured her she would have a role once they found Strand, but what could that possibly mean?

 

Strand wakes to fingers carding through his hair. He is warm, his body heavy. A low voice whispers something. The words catch on a gentle current; they are carried away before he can latch onto them. But the words themselves are unimportant. It’s the voice, familiar and kind, in which he finds comfort. 

He opens his eyes and the pain rushes in.

He groans at indistinct sight of his own lap. The ties binding him to the chair cut into his skin, opening new blisters formed beneath, causing old blisters to re-open. Blood drips sluggishly from the worst of them, down his fingertips to pool on the dirty floor beneath his chair.

He listens for movement, but for once, he is alone. His thoughts are not quite as muted, as before. He breathes in, slight and shallow, wincing with pain.

Somewhere beyond the room is a commotion. Gunshots echo from afar, at first, but each muffled _bang_ is louder than the one prior. Men and women shout, but Strand can only make out select words:

“...coming…”

“Get Strand...let him...away.”

“...stairwell…”

“How many…?”

“Who—?”

A person-like blur of color and shape races in, coming toward Strand. “We’re going.”

Strand recognizes the voice of the man named Chris. “What’s happening?”

The blur messes with something on the table. Strand recognizes this ritual by now. He wrenches against the ropes, but only succeeds in rocking the chair from side to side. The blur hovers closer. It holds Strand down, easily, so easily, despite Strand’s struggles. “Time to go night-night.”

The syringe pinches as Chris pushes the needle into Strand’s arm. Cold rushes back through Strand’s veins.

Strand returns to the void.

 

“Bingo!” 

All eyes turn to a young woman with red hair. She sits with her arm in the air and a triumphant smile on her face. 

Alex stands, along with the rest of the team. They crowd around the computer. Alex has to stand on her tip-toes, but even once she can see the screen, she can’t understand the lines of code displayed on it.

“You found Richard?” Coralee asks. She looks ready to drop with relief. Alex understands how she feels, but also a renewed drive to get to Strand and to rescue him.

“I’ve managed to triangulate _something_. A few square miles. It’s the best we can do, without some kind of miracle.” The woman stands and pushes her way through the crowd. She goes to one of the maps and, with a bright red marker, draws a circle. 

Alex stares at the map. “He’s still in Seattle? How could he have been so close, all this time?”

“It makes sense,” Tannis says. “If I was able to feel him in my dreams.”

Alex shakes her head. She’ll deal with Tannis’s claims to _feel_ Strand later. Once they’ve gotten to Strand. “Okay. So, what are we waiting for? We don’t have an address, but we could—”

“What?” Coralee asks, tone patient. “Canvas the streets?”

The frustration bubbles over. Each minute they stand around talking is another minute Strand is being held captive by the Cenophaes. “We have to do _something_.”

“We’ll find him, Alex,” Tannis says. “This is where I come in, actually.”

“You?” Alex asks.

“This is where Tannis puts his psychic talents to use,” Coralee says.

Alex looks between them. She expects either one to break into laughter, but neither of their expressions change. “You can’t be serious.”

Tannis smiles. “I did find Coralee, didn’t I? And I did so without the help of trained hackers. Comparatively, with an idea of where to start, finding Strand should be—” 

“If you say ‘a piece of cake,” Alex interrupts. “I will scream.”

Tannis’s smile falls. “Fair enough.”

“Why don’t you get to work?” Coralee says. She shakes her head, but the look she gives Tannis is fond. “Take Alex. You know what to do once you’ve located him.”

“Call in the cavalry. Got it.” 

Coralee walks away, presumably to take care of something else. Tannis nods his head toward the door, before taking long strides toward it.

It takes Alex a moment for her brain to catch up and then she’s rushing after him. “Wait, what does that mean? Call in the cavalry?”

Tannis opens the door, allowing Alex to slip out in front of him. She tugs the hood of her raincoat over her head. Her rainboots squelch through each puddle as they make their way to the SUV. 

Tannis stops her before she can get into the passenger seat. “I’m going to have to go into something like a trance. I’ll need you to drive.”

Alex gives him a long look before swiping the keys out of his hand. She pulls at the driver side door and hops into the vehicle, slamming the door closed before she can let in too much of the rain. Tannis settles in beside her while Alex readjusts the seat, until her much shorter legs can reach the pedals. She turns the key in the ignition and the SUV roars to life.

“Ok,” Alex says. “Tell me. What did you mean by calling in the cavalry? Because it doesn’t sound like your plan is to call the police and let them handle it.”

The corner of Tannis’s mouth crooks up. “That’s because it isn’t.”

“Then, what is the plan? I’m tired of being constantly in the dark.”

Tannis buckles his seat belt. He leans the seat back and folds his hands on his stomach. He closes his eyes, looking for all the world like he isn’t going to answer. Then, as if commenting on the rain, he says, “We’re going to eliminate the Order of the Cenophaes, once and for all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm legitimately finding this fic to be SO MUCH FUN to write. i hope it's been just as much fun to read. :D 
> 
> thanks again for all of you lovelies who have left comments and kudos--it means so much to me! <3


	6. Chapter 6

Beyond the steady _plink_ of rain, the SUV is silent. Beside her, Tannis lays back in his seat, his eyes still closed. His chest rises slow and steady with each breath.

They leave behind the suburbs. They drive for what feels like hours, Alex headed toward the area on the map indicated by the hacker.

As they approach their destination, Tannis murmurs, “Go west.”

Alex flips the blinker, turning west. She glances at Tannis, but he doesn’t appear to be aware of their surroundings. Alex clenches down on the urge to ask him where to go next, her hold on the steering wheel like a vice. She turns the speed of the wipers down a tick as the rain abates, but it still comes down hard enough for Alex to peer through the windshield. 

Every few minutes, Tannis murmurs a new direction. Alex, growing more lost by the second, can only follow along. The buildings turn into a mix of industrial warehouses and office spaces. Several of the buildings look to be abandoned, with windows blown out and lawns overgrown. 

She doesn’t have to be psychic to know if one was to kidnap someone, this place is the exactly where one would hold them hostage. 

As if reading her thoughts, Tannis jerks in his seat, sitting up straight. “Here. We’re here.”

Alex hits the breaks. The SUV’s brake assist keeps the vehicle from fishtailing on the wet concrete. It rolls to a stop in the tall grass on the side of the road. 

Tannis fishes his phone from the pocket of his jeans. He swipes at it a few times before bringing it to his ear. The call must not even ring a second time because almost immediately, he’s rattling off an address. He hangs up almost immediately, as well, with a fond “I will.”

Alex turns from him to the building across the street. It’s an older building with a faded red sign out front, reading “Office Space — For Sale.”

“So, now we wait?” she asks, not taking her eyes off the building. She doesn’t let go of the steering wheel, afraid if she does, she’ll wrench the car door open and try to storm the building like some kind of avenging white knight. 

“We wait,” Tannis says.

“Can you...still feel him?” 

Tannis shifts in his seat, resetting the incline. “He’s alive, Alex. Don’t worry. We’ll get him back.”

“How?” Alex says, finally tearing her gaze away from the office building. “You still haven’t told me anything.”

“You know the story,” Tannis says. “You know the Order of the Cenophaes was determined to play the Mysterium and destroy the veil between this world and one much darker. You, yourself, had a hand in it.”

Alex nods.

“Right. Well, Coralee realized there’s only one way for this to end. The Cenophaes have been around for centuries. They won’t be stopped until we stop them.”

“Stop them how?”

Tannis looks at her, his eyes willing her to understand.

Alex blinks, the realization dawning on her. She chokes, “You’re going to kill them?”

“We’re going to exterminate them,” Tannis says, without any malice. “These aren’t people anymore, Alex. They’re nothing but demons, who want nothing more than the destruction of humanity.”

“But—”

Tannis shakes his head. “If you want Strand back, this is what needs to happen. Or do you want him to live the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, the way he’s had to do until now? Never knowing what it means to feel safe?”

“Of course not,” Alex says. 

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” he continues. “Coralee’s team isn’t just a bunch of hackers hiding away in a safehouse. She has people for this part of the plan, too. People who don’t have a problem with getting their hands dirty.”

“And you?” Alex asks. “What are you going to do while Coralee’s people are...getting their hands dirty?”

Tannis’s lips quirk up. “Stay out of their way, to be honest. And, if I continue being honest, I think Coralee means for me to try and keep you safe...by keeping you out of trouble.”

Alex gives a short laugh, without much humor. She looks again at the building and counts the seconds until Coralee’s team arrives.

 

Men and women pile out of a nondescript white van—the same van which rescued Alex and Strand from Thomas Warren all those months ago. Each person is dressed from head to toe in black, including the black bandanas tied around their noses and mouths. In harnesses at their sides and, in some cases, strapped to the outside of their thighs, are weapons: knives, guns, pepper spray, grenade-looking items Alex recognizes as flash-bangs. Their eyes are grim and their hands steady as they ready themselves.

Coralee, dressed in jeans and a black shirt, an earpiece already fitted in her ear, drops down from the driver’s seat. She nods at her team and they move, as one, to cross the lawn toward the office building.

From their SUV across the street, Tannis waves. Coralee nods, then turns her attention to the building. She puts her fingers to her earpiece and her mouth moves, issuing instructions. 

With a well placed kick on either side, the front doors burst open. Coralee’s team ducks into the building, quickly and efficiently.

Alex flinches at the first round of gunshots. She holds onto the steering wheel until her hands ache, part out of worry for Strand and part out of guilt for not reaching for her phone to call the police, to let the authorities handle the situation. Apocalypse-driven cult or not, she’s complicit now in what essentially amounts to a mass murder. 

She swallows around the sudden burn in the back of her throat and forces herself to watch the building.

She expects it to last longer. To drag on for hours or for days. But, after ten minutes, the gunshots stop ringing out. After another ten minutes, black-clad figures spill out of the building. Alex holds her breath, until finally, she spots Strand. 

One man carries him by the upper body, with his arms locked beneath Strand’s, while two more men grasp at each of his bare feet. They balance Strand’s prone form between them, shuffling him out of the building. They’ve barely cleared the entrance before Alex is scrambling to unbuckle her seatbelt. Her hand is on the door handle, before Tannis’s hand settles on her shoulder, holding her back.

“He needs help,” Alex says, trying to wrench herself from under Tannis’s hold.

He holds tight, however. “It’s not safe. The plan—”

“Fuck your plan,” Alex says. She wrenches open the door and throws herself out of it.

Tannis calls out for her, but Alex races across the deserted street. Coralee sees her, and she, too, calls out for Alex. Alex doesn’t stop, not until she reaches the black clad figures holding onto Strand. They lay him out on the walkway, careful not to jostle him. Alex kneels beside him, hands hovering over him, half-afraid to touch and yet desperate to prove to herself he’s okay.

“They were trying to move him,” someone says, “but we got to him first.”

“He’s unconscious,” says another, “The blood on his face is old. Looks like they drugged him.”

A hand grips at Alex’s shoulder, pulling Alex up and away. 

Alex whips around to see Coralee. 

“Go back to the car, Alex. Tannis knows where to go. I’ll send along a doctor—someone discreet, someone we can trust.”

“But—”

“No buts, Alex,” Coralee says, in a tone that brooks no argument. “Do as I say. We’ll be right behind you.”

“Is he—is it finally over? Is Strand safe?”

Coralee’s eyes soften. “Not yet. Unfortunately, this doesn’t appear to be their headquarters. I’ll need you to keep laying low until we take care of Thomas Warren and the rest of the Cenophaes.”

Alex opens her mouth to ask how long they’ll be expected to hide, but two of Coralee’s black-clad team approach with a stretcher. She watches as they transfer Strand onto the canvas and lift him between them. 

“Go,” Coralee says.

Alex walks beside the stretcher. It’s all she can do to keep herself from reaching out to brush some of the greasy hair away from Strand’s face. Or to scrub away the flecks of dried blood clinging to his skin. There will be plenty of time to do that later. First, they need to get him somewhere safe.

Once they reach the SUV, Alex jogs in front of the stretcher to open the door to the back seat. She climbs in and awkwardly does what she can to help settle Strand across the seat, his head and shoulders lying in her lap. His long legs are carefully arranged before the door swings closed. A hand bangs on the car door twice, a goodbye and godspeed.

The engine turns over, Tannis now in the driver seat. He maneuvers the vehicle out of the grass and back onto the road.


	7. Chapter 7

The doctor Coralee sends to the Airbnb turned safe-house is a round man with a red face and kind, brown eyes. He and Tannis disappear into the master bedroom to get Strand washed of a week's worth of blood and grime and tend to his injuries. Alex, feeling useless, wanders the apartment, fingers brushing knick-knacks and keepsakes of people she’ll never know, making up stories to distract herself from the worst-case scenarios bouncing around her head. 

What if Coralee and her team aren’t able to take down the rest of the Cenophaes? What if she and Strand are forced into hiding for weeks, months, even years? What if the Cenophaes find them? What then?

Finally, both men exit the bedroom, closing the door softly behind them.

“How is he?” Alex asks, looking up from the eyes of a ceramic barn owl.

“He has some broken ribs,” Dr. Robert Morris says, voice as kind as his eyes. He makes a face in sympathy. “Four. He’s got a multitude of bruises and lacerations, thankfully none deep enough to require much attention. The skin around his wrists has been rubbed raw, however—presumably by the ropes they bound him with. I saw the beginnings of infection, so you’ll want to keep an eye on those wounds. I’ve got some antibiotics I can leave with you. Follow the instructions on the bottle, but please call if you notice worsening of his condition.”

Alex eyes the door. “Can I see him?”

Dr. Morris smiles. “He’ll be sleeping off the effects of the drugs for the next few hours, I think. But it wouldn’t hurt for him to wake to a familiar face. Just keep in mind: he’s likely to be somewhat fragile when he wakes up, after the ordeal he’s been through. Handle him with care.”

Alex nods and with a brief glance at Tannis, who smiles in understanding, slips through the door into the darkened, silent bedroom. The men continue to talk in the hallway, their voices muffled, their words indistinct. Alex pays them no attention, but instead tiptoes over carpet to the side of the King sized bed.

Strand’s hair is damp on the pillow, freshly washed. A week’s growth of beard shadows his face, a distinguished salt and pepper to match the greying at his temples. Dark purple rings are smudged beneath his eyes, the brow between them furrowed. The paisley blue comforter is pulled all the way up to his chin, but it doesn’t hide the slow, pained rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. 

Alex finally allows herself to touch, carding her fingers through poorly dried strands of his hair. Her fingers caress his forehead down to his cheek, where she cups his face. Her thumb brushes over the swell of his cheekbone, the rise of it sharp after a week of poor nutrition. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry this happened to you. I’m sorry it took us so long to find you. I’m sorry we didn’t do more to keep you safe when you first told me your secret. If I could have stopped thinking about the podcast for one goddamned second—”

Alex blinks back the burn of tears. She leans over him, pressing her forehead into his shoulder. She sniffles. “If I could have stopped thinking about the podcast, maybe we could have kept you safe.”

Strand makes a small noise of distress. Alex stops breathing to listen, but he doesn’t rouse any further. 

Alex swallows around the lump lodged in her throat. She forces herself to smile, even if he can’t see her, and lifts her head. She squeezes his shoulder. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

He doesn’t answer, but Alex doesn’t expect him to. 

 

In the living room, Tannis speaks into a small flip-phone. A burner phone. Their only tether to the outside world for the time being. They both turned off their smartphones and tossed them out the window of the SUV on their way to the safe-house, so they couldn’t be traced. He glances at Alex and says, with an almost embarrassed expression, “You too. Bye.”

“Coralee?” Alex asks.

A spot of pink appears in Tannis’s cheeks. He shoves the phone into a pocket of his jeans. “Ah, yes. She was, ah, checking in.”

Pieces start slotting themselves into place. The fond smiles. The soft touches. The easiness between the two. Alex’s eyes narrow, looking for a tell. “So, how long have you been together?”

Tannis blanches. “It’s not what you think.”

“So you haven’t been sleeping with Strand’s wife while letting him think she was abducted and murdered by a serial killer, all this time?”

Something flashes through Tannis’s eyes. She doesn’t have to be psychic to know he’s considering lying to her. But then his shoulders sag and he says, “It wasn’t supposed to happen. And it didn’t. Not until recently.”

“How recently?”

Tannis takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “There was always...something between us. It’s lonely, being part of a secret organization. More lonely, when you’re the head of a secret organization, living your life in hiding, after faking your own death. But neither of us allowed anything to happen. Not until Coralee had a chance to talk to Richard. Not until she saw how...close you two were becoming.”

Alex shakes her head. “Strand and I aren’t in a relationship.”

The corner of Tannis’s mouth curls, only slightly. Like he’s in on some sort of secret Alex could figure out if only she took a second to look. It’s gone almost as soon as it appears. “It was clear to Coralee that Richard had moved on. After twenty years, it was time for her to move on, too.”

“When were you going to tell him?”

Tannis laughs. “Never, if I could help it. That man’s anger burns like hot coals on my psyche. No, I was going to let Coralee take care of it. Once all of this was over and done.”

Alex shakes her head again, this time in disbelief. “And the animosity between you over the years—it had nothing to do with Coralee?”

“Most of the animosity, if you’ll recall, stems from Richard’s inability to believe in my gift. A shame, considering what we know about his own gift.” Tannis shrugs. “But, I can’t say it wasn’t fun to rile him up. Can you blame me for being jealous? Coralee has dedicated decades of her life, all of her time and attention, to keeping that man alive.”

Alex bites her lip, anxious to get back to Strand, anxious about keeping such a secret from him when he’s in just the other room, battered and broken. But there is one more question that needs to be answered before she can let Tannis drop the subject. For now. “Do you love her?”

Tannis smiles, soft, warm, and certain. “Yes.”

“Okay, then.” She rolls her eyes, most of the tension of the moment diffused. “You’re going to have to pull off the Band-Aid sooner or later, you know.”

“I know.”

“Good.” Alex takes one of the high-backed chairs from the small dining table. “I’m going to go sit with Strand. Let me know if there are any developments.”

She navigates the chair into the bedroom, closing the door on Tannis, leaving him to figure out how to spend the next few hours, unplugged as they are from the rest of society. 

 

He drifts, barely skimming the surface of consciousness. 

He’s aware, somewhat, of hands. Touching him. Moving him. Voices speak, but none of the words register as anything more than their base sounds. Beneath everything is an undercurrent of pain, but even that has dulled somewhat.

Strand sighs and let’s himself drift.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't normally post chapters on Fridays, but I'm going to be going on vacation for Chrissmass and I wanted to get something out before the holidays. Have a safe and happy Chrissmass, and if I don't get the next chapter up in time, have a fabulous New Year! <3


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, there, friends! Hope ya'll had a wonderful holiday or just a wonderful day, if you don't celebrate. Just a quick warning: There's a bit of vomiting. If you're squicked out by vomit, don't worry, it's super short! When Strand says "Oh" just skip down a bit and then you'll be golden.
> 
> Also, who knew writing Tannis Braun could be so fun? :P

He comes awake with a gasp.

His lungs burn. His chest is on fire. Each wheezing breath only stokes the flames, hotter and higher.

Tannis Braun shakes his head, dislodging the dream. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, settling himself back into his own body, back into his own skin.

He wrestles with the throw blanket tangled around his legs, until it goes tumbling off the edge of the sofa. He sits up, bare feet meeting the shock of cold tile floor. 

Across from him, tucked into the recliner, Alex Reagan sleeps, her mouth open against the tufted arm rest.

“Alex,” Tannis says, voice soft so he doesn’t startle her. “Alex, wake up.”

Her eyes flutter open. “Huh?”

“Wake up. Richard needs us. You. He needs you.”

She sits up, suddenly fully alert. “What?”

Tannis doesn’t answer—it would take too long to explain his dream and she wouldn’t fully believe him, anyway. Instead, he goes to the door of the master bedroom and swings it open.

To see Richard, sitting upright in bed, eyes wide with pain and fear. Struggling to breathe.

Alex shoulders past Tannis. She goes to Richard’s side. She reaches out to touch, but her hands hover, unsure. “Richard?”

Strand flinches at the sound of her voice. “A-Alex?”

“It’s me,” she says. “I’m here.”

Richard sucks in air, looking all the more desperate. His eyes latch onto Tannis. “No. Please, let her go. Don’t hurt her.”

Alex looks from Richard to Tannis, brow drawn down in confusion. Returning her attention to Richard, she says, “It’s okay. You’re safe now. We got you out. You’re here with me and Tannis Braun. You remember Tannis? The psychic?”

Richard’s hands tighten into fists, paisley comforter caught in his grip. He frowns. “Braun?”

“Hello, Richard,” Tannis says. “You were a hard man to find, for a minute there.”

Richard snorts, then winces. 

“How are you feeling?” Alex asks. She falls into the chair she set up the night before. She reaches to cup one of his hands with her own, but he wrenches the hand back, as if burned. His face goes white with the movement and his breathing goes from uneven to fast and shallow.

“Sorry,” Alex says, looking hurt. “I didn’t mean—”

“He can’t see,” Tannis says. “Not without his glasses. You just startled him. Isn’t that right, Richard?”

Richard swallows and nods. He looks at Alex, or rather, through Alex. He slides his hand back to where it was, turning it so the palm faces upward. 

Carefully, Alex places her hand in his. She laces their fingers together and squeezes. “Is that okay?”

Richard reaches out with his other hand, trapping Alex’s hand between both of his. Instantly, Tannis sees an image of an anchor in his mind’s eye, of a ship coming to port after a rocky voyage on an unpredictable sea. 

Safety. 

Homecoming.

Tannis smiles to himself. He’s half-tempted to duck out of the room, to give the two much needed privacy, but now is not the time. “Coralee is getting in touch with your assistant, Ruby, to see about getting you a spare pair of glasses. Until then, you’re probably not going to be do much moving around, anyway—not with four broken ribs—but if you need anything, obviously, let us know and we’ll help you.”

Richard takes a moment to digest the information, and then, predictably, he asks, “Coralee?”

Tannis blanches, even though he _knew_ Richard would ask. Thankfully, the other man can’t see his face. 

But Alexcan. She frowns at Tannis before swooping in. “A lot has happened since you were taken. Are you sure you’re ready to talk about it?”

“Tell me.”

“It’s early,” Alex persists, “and you’ve barely had any time to recover—”

“Tell me,” Richard says, more bark than bite. He slips his hands from around Alex’s and wraps his arms around his middle, face drawn with pain.

“Why don’t we tell him the Reader’s Digest version?” Tannis asks.

Alex opens her mouth to argue, but sits back in her chair, defeated. “Okay. Okay. Reader’s Digest version.”

She twists her hands together on her lap and takes a breath to steady herself. “You were kidnapped by the Order of the Cenophaes. Tannis, who has been working with Coralee for many years, led me to her safehouse, where her team were able to track down your location. Tannis...helped. We found you and—” 

“Sent in the cavalry,” Tannis finishes. 

It’s difficult to sit straight under the weight of her guilt filling the room. As for Tannis, he shakes it away easily enough. 

In the end, extermination was too good for those demons.

“Right,” Alex continues. “Sent in the cavalry. And, here we are, laying low in another safe-house while we wait for, for—”

“For Coralee to finish the job,” Tannis says. “And then you’ll be safe, Richard. No more stalkers. And no more threat of demonic apocalypse. Won’t that be nice?”

Richard’s face goes through a host of emotions. There must be traces of drugs still in his system, because this is the most expressive Tannis has ever seen the other man. Finally, he asks, voice hoarse, “What did they want from me?”

Alex shakes her head, unable to answer the question.

“Do you remember those letters you found, Alex?” Tannis asks. “The ones from Howard Strand, hidden behind the picture frame?”

Alex nods, then, remembering herself and Richard’s inability to see, she says, “Yes. But what do they have to do with anything?”

“Before Howard turned on the Cenophaes, he was involved in readying Richard for a ritual. The ritual was to be the second phase of ushering in the apocalypse—the Mysterium being phase the first. Alex playing the Mysterium on her podcast set the process in motion, but I believe they waited so long to take Richard—after failing that first attempt—because they have no idea what the ritual actually entails. In their impatience, they were hoping you would have learned something from your father, Richard. They thought they could just torture it out of you.”

“Did they say anything about a ritual?” Alex asks.

“No,” Richard says. “No, I don’t think—” 

Richard’s eyes go wide.

Tannis watches the scene unfold, hazy and indistinct, in his mind’s eye. 

_A man and a woman. The woman cries softly as the man tries to comfort her._

_Grey-clad shadows. The shadows throw questions at the couple, like barbs. The couple beg for their lives, knowing nothing. Impatient, cruel, the shadows threaten them. The man tries to break free, tries to confront the shadows._

_Gunshots._

_One._

_Two._

_The man and woman fall._

_Dead._

Tannis blinks himself back to the present just as the Richard in his mind slips away into inky blackness. It takes him a long second to realize how completely he fell into Richard’s memory.

It’s never happened before. Never so strongly. Usually he has _feelings_. Impressions. Never anything so immersive.

Tannis stares at Richard. Just how strong is Richard’s gift? If he can project his thoughts so loudly, so completely, without any training, what could he do with a little control?

“They killed them,” Richard says. “My captors. The Cenophaes. They killed them.”

“Killed who?” Alex asks.

Richard shakes his head, skin pale. “I don’t know. It’s not clear, but I think—I think they were being interrogated. They didn’t know anything, so they were killed.”

“So, maybe the Cenophaes thought those other people might know something about the ritual?” Alex asks.

“Or the Cenophaes hoped to jog Richard’s memory,” Tannis offers. “Give him some incentive to talk, if he happened to be holding anything back.”

“I can assure you, I was not. My father never imparted any ritual knowledge to me. In fact, he—” Richard closes his mouth, glaring in the direction of Tannis.

“He discouraged magical thinking,” Tannis says. “With the strap. I know.”

Strand frowns. “Don’t you have a missing puppy to find?”

Tannis smiles, unable to help himself. “I believe I’ve already done that.”

Strand frowns harder. He opens his mouth, but closes it as he sways. His skin takes on a grey-green color. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Alex asks.

“Trash can,” Tannis says, diving toward the bin. 

It’s a decorative wicker thing, more form than function, but at least it’s lined with plastic. Tannis has just enough time to shove the bin at Richard before he’s heaving what little he has in his stomach into it.

Alex rubs the space between Richard’s shoulders, her face twisted in sympathy.

When Richard sits up, his face is streaked with tears. 

“Dr. Morris said you might start to experience some withdrawal from the drugs,” Tannis says, taking the bin from Richard’s white-knuckled grip.

“Perfect,” Richard rasps.

“I’ll go get this” Tannis lifts the ruined bin, “cleaned up and I’ll bring some water and some mouthwash back with me. Alex, can you get some extra blankets, in case Richard gets cold?”

“Sure.” She hops out of her chair, but doesn’t make it far before Richard reaches blindly for her. Alex catches his hand and squeezes it. “I’ll be right back.”

Tannis sees the image of the ship again, this time threatening to come undocked from its moorings. 

“I’ve got it,” he says. “Alex, you sit right where you are.”

“Are you sure?” she asks.

“You’re a far better anchor than I am.”

Richard jerks his head in Tannis’s direction, his brow furrowed.

“Anchor? What does that even mean?” Alex asks.

On his way out of the room, Tannis can’t help but grin. “Ask Richard.”


	9. Chapter 9

As soon as Tannis leaves the room, an awkward silence descends. 

“What did he mean?” Alex asks. “What should I ask you?”

Strand turns his face away from her. “I don’t know.”

He isn’t telling the whole truth, of course. With everything that’s happened to him in the last week, however, she’s willing to let it go. “Okay.”

Something like surprise flashes through his eyes, as if he weren’t expecting her to back off. Admittedly, it’s not something she usually does once she’s got her teeth sunk into something interesting, especially not when it comes to him and his secrets. Alex sighs and reaches over to grasp at his sleeve, careful not to startle him again. 

He turns to her, tear tracks still drying on his cheeks.

“Can I touch you?” she asks.

He nods.

With the sleeve of her sweater, Alex wipes away the remaining wetness. “There, that’s a little better. How are you feeling?”

His lips twitch. “Not very well, I’m afraid.”

Alex smiles. “Right. That was a dumb question.”

“Perhaps,” he says, making Alex laugh. After a beat, he continues. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being concerned. And for rescuing me.”

She’s a journalist—she makes her living by describing some of the most terrible things imaginable, but she can’t describe the terror she felt when he was taken. Nor can she describe the agony of waiting and worry while they searched for him. “We got to you as soon as we could. I know it wasn’t soon enough, but—”

Strand shakes his head. “Don’t.”

Alex leans back in her chair. She forces herself to relax. To remind herself he’s here, right here, and no one is going to take him. Not again. Not if she has anything to say about it. “Okay. You’re right. You’re here and that’s what matters.”

Knuckles rap softly at the door. It swings open and Tannis ducks through, his arms full. “Sorry to interrupt.”

“No,” Alex says, popping out of her chair to help. “You’re fine.”

She takes the spare blankets from him and piles them at the end of the bed. There are enough to fully cocoon Strand’s six-foot-something form and then some.

Tannis arranges the rest of the contents of his arms on the bedside table beside Strand. “I brought antibiotics, ibuprofen, mouthwash, and a couple bottles of water. What do you want first, Richard? Do you think you can keep the drugs down?”

“Mouthwash,” Strand says. “Then, water. Please.”

“Coming right up,” Tannis says. He rips the plastic wrap from the mouthwash cap with a flourish. “Hold out your hand. Careful not to spill.”

Strand holds out his hand with a frown. “I’m not a child.”

“Of course you’re not,” Tannis says, grinning.

Alex glares at him in warning.

Chastised, Tannis sobers. “I’m placing it in your hand. The cap is off. That’s all I’m saying. When you’re ready, I’ve got a paper cup you can spit into.”

Strand swishes the mouthwash through his mouth and spits into the waiting cup. Tannis hands him an open water bottle and leaves the room to throw out the cup.

Strand sips at the water. 

“Do you want to try taking the drugs now?” Alex asks.

Strand tries to hide a grimace behind another sip of water. He shakes his head, slightly.

“Still feeling nauseous?” 

Carefully, Strand places the water bottle on the table, within reach. “I’d rather not chance it.”

Alex doesn’t blame him. Throwing up with broken ribs is not an experience she envies. “I’ll see if we can get you something for your stomach. You’ll need to take the antibiotics for your wrists and your ribs will feel better after some pain killers.”

Strand nods, then slowly shifts himself on the bed, mouth pressed in a firm line against the pain. “I’d like to try to sleep, now. Would you—”

“Right,” Alex says, shaking her head. “I should let you rest. I’ll just—”

“—stay? Please?”

Alex drops back into her chair. “Yes, of course. Whatever you need.”

“Thank you.” Strand closes his eyes. He breathes slowly out.

And then, he’s asleep.

Alex smiles. If only she could fall asleep just as quickly.

Tannis pops his head into the room. He whispers, “Need anything?”

“My book, if you could,” she whispers back.

He disappears again, returning with Alex’s book. He stands next to Alex and, for a moment, they both watch Strand sleep.

He looks exhausted. His face is still pale and gaunt, and with a week’s worth of beard, he looks much like he did when Alex found him in the disaster of his office, when he first confessed his secret.

If only she had done more about it when he first told her. If only she had pressed him for details. Or really looked into it, instead of focusing on the Tapes, themselves. Or on Coralee, who has proved time and again she can only be found when she desires to be found.

“Hindsight is 20/20,” Tannis says, voice low.

Alex glares at him. “I really need you to not do that.”

Tannis smiles his most charming smile. “Do what?”

“You’re whole psychic _thing_.”

“Then, you need to stop spilling your guilt all over this apartment. It’s very distracting.”

Alex’s face lights up red. She turns back to Strand and pulls a corner of the comforter to cover more of him. 

A year ago, she wouldn’t have believed Tannis—not totally—about his gift. But after finding Strand, after leading her straight to him with only a vague direction to go on, she can’t just chalk it up to being a good investigator, anymore. “Just, please, try and stay out of my head.”

“Afraid of what I might find there?” He smiles to show he’s teasing her. “Sorry. I’ll try to keep your thoughts to yourself.”

Alex rolls her eyes. “Thank you. That’s all I ask.”

“Besides,” he continues, almost as if she hadn’t said anything, at all, “I don’t need to be psychic to know you’re in love with him.”

Alex freezes, her entire body gone cold. Just as quickly, she unthaws. She turns to Tannis, flushed with embarrassment and fury. “ _Fuck_.”

As if sensing danger, Tannis leaps back, hands up to defend himself. “Was that supposed to be some kind of secret?”

Alex stalks toward him, but stops when Strand makes a noise. She forces her hands to unclench. “No. It’s just—it’s not the right time, okay? He’s sick and he’s hurting and we _just_ got him back.”

Tannis gives her an understanding look, even as he looks ready to bolt. “Believe me, I know about things never being the right time.”

Alex sits in her chair. She lets out a deep sigh. “Just go away, Tannis.”

He ducks out of the room, but pops his head in, always having to have the last word. “Just remember, hindsight is 20/20.”

If Strand weren’t asleep, Alex would throw her book at him. Instead, she opens her book and proceeds to ignore him, even as her heart races in her chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! :D


	10. Chapter 10

Strand dreams of walking through a vast expanse of white snow and ice. Of glaciers and pressure ridges protruding high into the air, the sky where it meets the landscape so bright it could almost be white, as well. 

He hugs bare arms around himself and picks his way through the snow, barefoot, his toes tinged black with frostbite. He does not know the direction he is meant to travel, does not know what, if anything, he’s meant to search for out in the bright white of the arctic.

He puts one foot in front of the other and walks.

When his feet can no longer carry him—too far gone with rot—he crawls, dragging his useless body behind him. His fingers burn with cold, then go blessedly numb, even as the beds of his fingernails stain the snow with rust-colored blood.

And when he no longer has the strength to crawl, when the blood in his veins has frozen him still and solid, beneath him the ice opens up and swallows him whole.

Back into the void.

 

Alex Reagan emerges from the master bedroom, shoulders hunched, socked feet shuffling along the tile, looking as heartbroken as Tannis Braun has ever seen her.

“Are you...alright?” Tannis asks from his place on the floor, just in front of the glass coffee table. He rearranges the throw blanket around his criss-crossed legs, tucking it in more tightly around his feet. He’s been _freezing_ all morning, despite the ambient temperature of the apartment.

She turns her head and smiles, but it’s tight. “I’m fine. I’m making tea. Do you want any?”

“No, thanks.” Tannis places a puzzle piece next to another, similar piece. He flips it this way and that, but the piece doesn’t fit. He tosses it onto the pile of pieces that will eventually become a wheelbarrow in the greater garden scene of the 4500 piece jigsaw he found after rummaging in a closet with a cheerful chalkboard sign reading Games & Activities. “How’s our patient?”

Alex busies herself gathering items for tea. She fills a mug and places it in the microwave. “He’s...um, doing as well as can be expected, I guess. Still asleep, but shivering, even after I piled all those blankets over him.”

“That would explain it,” Tannis mutters.

“What?”

“I said, ‘that’s terrible.’” 

He tries another puzzle piece. 

_Bingo!_ It slots into place.

“It’s just,” Alex continues, leaning against the counter with her hands behind her back, “I don’t know how to fix it.”

Tannis frowns, searching through puzzle pieces for one that looks promising. “Who said you needed to be the one to _fix_ anything?” 

“You. Coralee. You both seem to think I’d be the one to make it all better.” She glances at the open door to the master bedroom and lowers her voice. “But it’s not like I’m a doctor. I don’t actually know what the hell I’m doing.”

Abandoning the puzzle with a sigh, Tannis moves from the floor to the sofa. He waits for her to meet his eyes. “No one expects you to do the impossible, Alex. Richard is probably going to need a hell of a lot of therapy, after this is over. But from a licensed professional, not a reporter-slash-podcast host. Your role here is only to continue doing what you’ve been doing from the start.”

“And that is?”

“You care for him.”

“I’m not the only—”

“You’re right,” Tannis says, interrupting her before she can list off Richard’s contact list. “There are a number of people out there who care for Richard.”

Alex pushes herself away from the counter, but seems to think better of it. She crosses her arms over her chest and falls back against the counter. She lets her head hang backward, her lips set into a pout, staring at the ceiling like the answers she’s looking for are written up there. “So, why me?”

“Do I really need to spell it out?”

Alex glares at him. “I’m not better qualified just because I’m...because I’m in love with him.”

“Feels good to say that out loud, doesn’t it?” Tannis teases.

If Alex could throw something at him, she would, but all there is is her mug of rapidly cooling tea. Tannis jumps to continue, before she can work up the idea to actually throttle him. “Look, Alex. That man has known very few moments of true safety in his life, as you can probably imagine. It’s hard to have a moment to breathe when the Cenophaes want to use you as the key ingredient to their secret ritual to destroy all life on earth, no matter how deep into denial you are about the whole demonic apocalypse _thing_.”

Her lips quirk up at the corners. “You’re saying I make him feel safe?” 

Tannis watches as pieces of her own puzzle fall into place. 

“ _That’s_ what you meant by ‘anchor.’”

Tannis grins. “Ding, ding, ding.”

Alex shakes her head. “How is that even possible? Ever since we met, we’ve managed to hurt one another. Over and over, in one way or another. We keep coming back, but— how can he equate that with safety?”

Tannis shrugs. “That’s a conversation you need to be having with him, don’t you think?”

Alex sighs with her entire being. She picks up her mug, swirls the contents, and sets the mug back down again. “I’m going to go take a shower. Can you sit with him for a bit? In case he wakes up?”

“Sure. I wasn’t getting anywhere fast with this anyway.”

Alex smirks. “What, you can find missing persons, but you can’t divine which puzzle piece goes where?”

Tannis puts on an affronted expression. “I would never misuse the gift like that, Alex. But no, if you must ask. Jigsaw puzzles are not exactly my forte.”

“I’ll be quick,” Alex says, heading for her suitcase, still sitting by the front door. In all the time they’ve been at the safe house, she’s yet to unpack. Perhaps once Richard is back on his feet, she’ll feel comfortable setting up in the guest room Tannis has gallantly left vacant for her. Or, in the event of the actual apocalypse, they’ll spill their secrets and end up sharing the master bedroom, leaving the spare room open for Tannis.

“Take your time,” he says. “I think I can manage not to annoy him with my presence long enough for you to catch a break.”

“Right,” Alex says, in a tone that says she doesn’t believe him at all. She stands, arm full of clothing and toiletries. “And that’s only because he’s asleep.”

“Exactly. He wakes up? I may have to have you cut your shower short.”

Alex laughs and disappears into the bathroom. 

Tannis stands and, wrapping the throw blanket around him like a cape, tip-toes into the master bedroom where Richard still sleeps. 

Cold radiates from Richard, like a fog rolling off a dark sea. Tannis shivers as he sits down in Alex’s chair. 

“Is it too much to ask for you to dream of something a little warmer?” he whispers. “How about a beach in Florida?”

Richard shakes beneath his cocoon of blankets.

“I thought as much.” 

Tannis sighs and settles in to wait. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk yall. it's a chapter. i hope you liked it.
> 
> also, you can blame my recent obsession with The Terror for Strand's dreams. poor guy. at least there aren't any polar bears chomping on him.


	11. Chapter 11

Coralee Strand stabs her fork through a cherry tomato. She makes a face and, using a knife so as not to have to touch the blasted thing, pries it from the metal tongs onto a paper napkin. 

“Have you made any progress?” she asks into the phone held between her shoulder and chin.

“No,” Tannis says, voice low. “I’ve been doing all that I can, but it’s like they’ve learned to put up a block, somehow. It doesn’t help that Alex has been literally _dripping_ with guilt since we raided the office and Richard—we knew he had potential, but I’m telling you, he’s so much stronger than I thought he could be, given how hard he’s been suppressing his gift.”

Coralee digs through her salad, looking for a crouton. She scrapes at the bottom of the plastic bowl, but, as usual, she’s already demolished them. She chews on a disappointing mouthful of lettuce, humming to let Tannis know she’s still listening.

“Alex doesn’t seem to notice it, but he’s lowered the temperature of the apartment to about negative fifty. I keep getting images of the arctic. And searching. I mean, it feels like he’s searching for something, but he can’t find it, and every time he fails there’s just this all-consuming—I don’t know what you’d call it.” Tannis pauses. “Void, maybe? That word feels right, for some reason.”

“You said he’s going through withdrawal. They could be junk dreams, his subconscious dealing with how cold his body feels while his system purges itself.”

“Could be,” Tannis agrees. “He could also be picking up my own search, piggybacking without knowing it. Or some combination of the two. Whatever it is, it’s the void thing that concerns me.”

Coralee pounces on a stray shred of cheese, one of the last surviving bits of goodness left in her lunch. What she wouldn’t give for a burger, right about now. “What do you mean?”

“It’s so expansive. What if he gets lost in it?”

“You mean, psychically?” 

“Yeah,” Tannis says. “I don’t know if I could go in and bring him back out of it without getting us both lost.”

Coralee pushes away the wilted remains of her salad. She places both elbows on the table, holding up the phone with one hand and her head in the other. “I had an idea. Earlier, but I think now would be a good time to bring it up.”

“And what’s that?”

“I think we’re going to need Richard’s help in the search for Thomas and the rest of the Cenophaes. And I think you’re going to need to be the one to teach him how to control his gift.”

He doesn’t say anything for a long minute. Coralee can imagine his handsome face go through each of the seven stages of grief. “Coralee—”

“I know,” she interrupts. “I know. What I’m asking for is a lot. Especially with Richard so unwell. But I think with your guidance, we might finally have the upper hand. We can end this, once and for all.”

Tannis sighs. “This is going to be so painful.”

“Perhaps Alex could help you persuade him? Richard is stubborn, but we’ve both seen the way he looks at her.”

“The same way he looked at you, once upon a time.” He manages to keep most of the jealousy she knows he harbors out of his voice. Not all of it, but most. 

Coralee smiles. “That was twenty years ago. Time moves forward, as does the heart.”

Tannis laughs. “As much as I love that you didn’t steal that straight out of a Hallmark card, I’ve gotta go. Alex is holding up a roll of bandages and frowning at me. I think she wants my help with Richard.”

“Before you go,” Coralee says, already missing him, “did the courier get to you without any complications?”

“Knocked with the secret passcode and everything. Once Richard’s up, he’ll be glad to see again, I’m sure.” 

The receiver snuffles, muffled by a hand. Tannis speaks, presumably to Alex, but Coralee can’t make out the words. It snuffles again, the hand removed. “Listen, babe. Alex looks ready to mummify me with those bandages if I don’t get off the phone. I’ll let you know if I make any new progress. Bye!”

Coralee says goodbye, but it sounds far away, even to her own ears. 

Tannis called her ‘babe.’

He’s never done that before. He’s never used _any_ terms of endearment, and never so casually. And _never_ in front of another person. They’ve kept their relationship behind closed doors, for the sake of the mission.

Her cheeks light up, red hot. Her heart does a flip in her chest. Butterflies flutter along her nerves, making her feel pleasant all over. She’s headed toward her late fifties, but she feels like a giddy teenager in love.

In _love_.

She closes her eyes, trying to hold on to the sensation as long as possible. She allows herself a few minutes, then straightens with a sigh.

Time to get back to work.

 

The sun has set by the time Strand wakes again. Alex, engrossed in her book, only notices when the mountain of blankets shifts for longer than usual as Strand pushes himself to sit against the headboard. 

“Good morning,” she says. She places the crumpled Starbucks napkin serving as her bookmark between the pages to mark her place. She sets the book beneath her chair, where it won’t get stepped on.

“What time is it?” he asks, rubbing at the beard along his jaw. 

“Around seven,” Alex says. “At night. You’ve been asleep all day. How are you feeling?”

The look he throws in her direction is one of abject misery.

“I’m know,” Alex says. “I’m sorry. Can I get you anything? Another blanket? You’ve been shivering non-stop, but I’m afraid you’re eventually going to overheat if I keep adding more layers.”

He shakes his head. He closes his eyes, head tilted back against the headboard, and shivers. He doesn’t say anything for a long time and Alex nearly believes he’s fallen asleep like that, except for his fingers tracing at the new bandages circling his wrists.

“Are they too tight?” Alex asks. “I can re-wrap them if they’re uncomfortable.”

He blinks his eyes open, staring blankly in her direction. “They’re fine. Thank you.”

Alex frowns. He doesn’t look entirely present, like he’s awake, but not really. “Your glasses came today. They’re in their case on the table next to you. I can hand them to you, if that would be easier—”

“No, thank you,” he says, softly. His eyes slip shut again.

“There’s a note from Ruby, too. For when you feel up to it.”

He nods, eyes still closed.

Alex sits in silence, racking her brain for something to say, anything to bring him back to her. Which is ridiculous, because he’s sitting right here, right in front of her. 

“I was dreaming,” he murmurs.

“Dreaming?”

He hums.

“Do you...want to talk about it?”

He breathes in, long and slow. He looks like he could drift off between one word and the next. “I can’t quite remember.”

“Do you want to go back to sleep?”

He shakes his head.

“Can I get you anything to eat? How about some tea?”

“Tea,” he says. Pulling at the mound of blankets, he drags it higher and hugs it to him, his arms wrapped around his middle. “Please.”

Alex smiles, clamping down on the urge to help tuck the blankets closer around him. “Coming right up.”

On socked feet, she slides a little on the tile on her way to the kitchen. As always, she leaves the door cracked, just in case.

In the living area, Tannis lies wrapped in the throw blanket on the sofa, eyes closed. His puzzle, spread out over the glass coffee table, has seen very little progress be made in the hours since he helped her to clean Strand’s wounds and apply new bandages.

While they were working, Tannis had explained his attempts to find the Cenophaes using his gift, the block he kept coming against, and the deep meditative trances required to break through it. He’d also muttered something about hoping not to have to resort to desperate measures, but when Alex pushed him to explain what exactly ‘desperate measures’ was supposed to mean, he’d brushed her off with a joke.

Alex tiptoes through the act of making tea, careful not to disturb him any more than she needs to. The faster he finds the Cenophaes, the faster Alex can get Strand home, to the comfort of his own bed, where he can recover in peace.

When she re-enters Strand’s bedroom, she finds him much the same way she had when she left, except his glasses are falling down his nose and Ruby’s letter threatens to fall from his loose-fingered grasp. His eyes are closed and Alex knows with a glance he is well and truly asleep.

She gently pulls his glasses from his face and places them back in their case. She folds Ruby’s letter and puts it back in the envelope, which she slides beneath the glasses case for safekeeping. 

Alex sits in her chair and, much like her book, picks up her vigil where she last left it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! this chapter is weird! but i like it! i hope you liked it, too!


	12. Chapter 12

Strand wakes, pushing past the sticky residue of uncertain dreams, to darkness.

He grasps for his glasses, left on the bedside table, and shoves them onto his face before shifting himself to sit against the headboard. He moves slow, careful not to jostle his ribs. It’s been three days since his rescue— or is it four?—and while his broken ribs no longer cause him agony, they are still an ever-present ache in his chest. 

It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark, but when they do, Strand sighs.

Alex sleeps in the chair still sitting beside his bed, slumped onto the mattress, her head pillowed on her folded arms. Her hair, pulled into a messy bun on top of her head, bobs with the pull of each slow breath. 

“Alex,” he says, voice like gravel. 

She snuffles in her sleep, nuzzling her face deeper into the hollow of her arms.

“Alex,” he tries again. “Wake up.”

She lifts her head and looks back and forth, as if scanning for danger. “Huh? What’s happening?”

“Nothing. Nothing’s happening.”

“Then, what?”

Her expression of sleepy confusion should not be as endearing as it is. His lips twitch up on one side in a wry smile. “Go to bed.”

She blinks. “I—what?”

“Go on to bed. I’ll be fine.”

She yawns, mouth open so wide her jaw cracks. She raises her arms above her head, stretching. “Y’re kicking me out?”

“You need your rest.”

“Mm. Ok.” She stands and twists, right and then left, using the back of the chair for support. “Be out in the living room if you need me.”

Strand frowns. Is that where she’s been sleeping each night? He’d assumed she’d taken up residence in the spare bedroom while Braun slept on the sofa. “While I appreciate your willingness remain close by should I need assistance, I can manage on my own.”

She stops in her trudge across the room, the line of her back tense. “I don’t mind. I’d rather—”

Alex shakes her head and reaches for the door handle. 

Something in Strand nudges at him. Perhaps she isn’t the only one reluctant to part, no matter how capable he claims to be. 

“Unless—”

She stops and turns. “Yes?”

“Unless you’d like to stay.” 

His face burns. He clenches his fists, steeling himself for...something. 

Rejection? 

Disgust?

“You mean, share the bed?” Alex asks. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other.

It’s a clear line they shouldn’t cross as podcast host and subject, as colleagues, or friends, even, but she doesn’t seem adverse to the idea. If anything, the sound of her voice is...hopeful.

Interesting.

He tries to keep the tone of his own voice even. “I believe it to be large enough for the both of us.”

It’s difficult to see her exact expression. All he can do is wait for her response and hope he hasn’t misread the situation. That she isn’t angry with him for suggesting something so forward.

The apartment is silent, except for the _thump_ , _thump_ , _thump_ of his heartbeat against his aching ribcage. His face is still hot. He counts each second, each painful second, until— 

“That seems...reasonable.” 

Strand budges to the left as Alex pads across the room. He turns down the blanket for her—just the one now that he’s come through the worst of the withdrawal—and Alex climbs in. 

Once settled, she tugs the blanket to her chin. She lays there, awkward and still and silent, for several long minutes. 

“Aren’t you going to lay down?” she asks.

“Oh. Yes.” With a grimace of both pain and embarrassment, he moves down until the back of his head hits the pillow.

Between them, there is plenty of space, and yet, Strand is fully alert to her presence. To her warmth. To the rise and fall of her chest. To the tiniest slide of her skin against smooth, cotton sheets.

Neither speaks, but as the seconds tick onward, Alex’s arm emerges from beneath the blanket. In the dark, she pats the bed, searching, until her hand finds his. She links their fingers together and squeezes. She doesn’t let go. 

“Is this okay?” she whispers.

“Yes,” he whispers back. 

Were he not injured, would she curl up beside him, her head pillowed on his shoulder, her arm thrown across his waist? Were he not injured, would he roll onto his side and scoop her into an embrace? Would he hold her as she fell asleep, warm and safe within the circle of his arms? Were he not injured, would she even be here, at all?

He returns the squeeze of her hand.

He closes his eyes and doesn’t let go.

 

The sky is grey and overcast in the early morning. What little sunlight there is struggles in through sheer curtains, bathing the living room in muted color.

Alex is absent from the armchair, where she normally curls up to sleep. She must have gotten an early start to her day. 

Which, so far, her days have consisted of sitting by Strand’s bedside, reading, quietly chatting to him when Strand is with the waking world, and grilling Tannis on the progress he’s made with locating the Cenophaes. No voices drift through the open door, meaning Alex is probably busy with the former: sitting by Strand’s bedside, reading.

A mug of steaming coffee in one hand, Tannis crosses the apartment to check on his charges. He pushes the door open on silent hinges and peers into the room. 

A wide smile pulls at his lips.

Alex and Strand lay asleep, side by side. Between them, their hands are clasped, fingers tangled.

Tannis retreats, closing the door behind him. “ _Finally_.”

Setting the coffee on the dining table, Tannis flops down on the sofa. He closes his eyes and goes back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter today, but, hey, Strand is awake and feeling much better!
> 
> also, while i was already rolling the idea around in my head, a couple readers asked for Alex and Strand to cuddle up, and i thought this was the perfect opportunity. especially since we're about to enter some ~dramatic~ territory. yay, plot!


	13. Chapter 13

The soft pattering of rain against the window tugs gently at Alex’s awareness.

She smiles, eyes still closed, and stretches, arms raised over her head, her toes curling as her back cracks in just the right places.

She slept...well. Better than she has in _months_.

She opens her eyes to find herself in Strand’s bedroom, in his bed. 

Alone.

Her smile falls away. 

The sheets are mussed and his pillow still bears the indent of his head as he slept. 

The door to the en suite bathroom is open. The light is off. Vacant. 

The bedroom door is closed. 

Her heart pounding, Alex pulls back the blanket. Her leg gets caught in the sheets as she launches herself out of bed. She falls to the floor with a dull _thud_. 

“Fuck,” she whimpers, rubbing at her knee.

Footsteps sound outside the closed door, growing louder as they approach. The door swings open, and Tannis peers inside with a look of concern. Behind him stands Strand, brow pinched with worry.

Alex lets her head hang with a sigh of relief. Of _course_ , Strand is fine. Of _course_ , Alex overreacted. He’d probably woken up before her and, not wanting to disturb her sleep, moved into the living room. He’d shut the door so she could have some quiet. She’d panicked because he was being considerate. 

“You okay there, superstar?” Tannis asks.

Her cheeks light up. “Yeah. I’m okay. I just fell.”

“Do you need a hand or are you good on the floor?”

Alex heaves herself onto her feet with the help of the mattress. She glowers at Tannis. “Go back to your puzzle, will you?”

Tannis smirks, but he puts his hands up in surrender. “Someone is touchy, this morning. You’d think you’d be all smiles, now that your secret’s out.”

Alex goes still. Ice races up her spine. 

“Tannis,” she says, in warning.

Behind Tannis, Strand frowns.

Oblivious, Tannis continues, “Found the right time, after all? I _really_ did not think it would be so soon after Sleeping Beauty here woke up, but, hey, good for—”

“Tannis!” Alex snaps.

Tannis stops. “ _What_?”

“Shut. Up.” Her fingers curl into tight fists. Her nails stab into the meat of her palms. She has to remind herself to breathe.

She refuses to look at Strand.

“Just, shut up, okay?” she continues. “ _Please_. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His eyes go wide as realization dawns. “Oh. _Ohh_.”

“Alex?” Strand asks. It’s just her name, but coming from him, it’s also loaded with questions. Questions Alex can’t answer. Not yet.

She needs time to get her head right. She needs _space_ , but in their apartment safe-house, there’s nowhere for her to go.

“Fuck,” she says. She drags stray hairs out of her face, fingers snagging in the tangles of what is probably severe bedhead. “ _Fuck_. I’m going to take a shower.”

No one moves.

“My suitcase is in the other room,” she prompts.

“Oh. Right.” Tannis backs out of her way, hands up in self-defense. His expression resembles one of Nic’s dogs after she’s been scolded. If he had a tail, it’d be tucked between his legs.

Strand stares at her, expression unreadable, before he seems to shake himself into action. Slowly, he turns and walks away.

Alex speed-walks through the living area. She rifles through her suitcase for her last pair of clean clothes—she’s going to have to do a load of laundry—and bundles them into her arms.

Neither Tannis nor Strand speaks. Strand sits on the sofa while Tannis pretends to peer out of the blinds through rain-streaked windows at the street below. 

Before her eyes can meet Strand’s, drawn to look at him like a compass is drawn to magnetic north, Alex dashes into the guest bathroom. She closes the door and locks it.

“Fuck,” she whispers.

And lets the tears fall.

 

From his position by the window, Tannis watches Richard watch the closed door of the bathroom. 

Richard doesn’t move. He doesn’t say anything. He simply sits, flooding the room with concern, and anxiety, and...oh yes, there it is.

Fury.

Tannis winces. 

He doesn’t dare move from his spot by the window. Doesn’t dare call attention to himself, to have the full force of Richard’s anger turned on him.

He isn’t given the choice. 

As soon as the spray of the shower covers what are very obviously the sounds of hiccuping sobs, Richard rises to his full height. He wobbles, a little, before steadying himself. He turns and stares at Tannis, eyes cool as ice. 

Unconsciously, Tannis tries to take a step back, but catches himself in the blinds. The window is cold at his back.

“It wasn’t my intention,” Tannis starts. “You have to know it wasn’t my intention to make her cry, Richard.”

Richard doesn’t even blink.

“I was _teasing_. I thought—I _assumed_ it was a happy occasion. I swear.”

At any other time, Richard might make a jab at Tannis about his gift. Now, he just stands between Tannis and the bathroom, as if he can protect Alex from Tannis. As if Alex _needs_ protection from Tannis.

“You can stand down,” Tannis continues, when Richard still doesn’t say anything. “And by that, I mean sit down. You’re going to keel over.”

Richard sways. His face has gone pale beneath almost two weeks’ worth of beard. He wraps his arms around his waist and glares.

Stubborn man.

“Seriously, Richard. Alex is going to kill me if she comes out of the shower and sees you collapsed on the floor.”

Slowly, Richard pulls in a breath. Slowly, he moves toward the bedroom. Slowly, he closes the door behind him.

Standing alone in the middle of the living area, Tannis curls his fingers by his sides. They ache to call Coralee, but there are still four hours until their agreed upon check-in time. He jams his hands into his pockets and rocks on his heels. 

No, this is a mess he’ll have to clean up on his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if i named my chapters, this one would just be called "well, fuck."
> 
> ...i did say there was going to be ~drama~ coming up, didn't i?


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i couldn't just leave things the way they were in the last chapter, so here's the next. all i ask is you don't ask me to pay for your next visit to the dentist, because your ensuing cavities aren't my fault, i swear

Alex emerges from the bathroom, fully dressed, but still damp, expecting to be accosted by both Tannis and Strand.

Instead, she finds Tannis in the kitchen, frying eggs. On the counter beside him are three plates. Each plate is already stacked with slices of buttered toast.

“Where’s Strand?” she asks, hating the nasally just-recently-cried-her-eyes-out quality to her voice.

Tannis looks up, then back to his eggs. “Bedroom. I imagine it’ll be a little while before he’s back to one-hundred percent. That or he couldn’t stand the sight of my face.”

Alex snorts.

“Listen—”

“Listen—”

Tannis lifts the edge of an egg with a spatula, checking the underside for doneness. “You go first.”

Alex shakes her head. “No, you.”

Tannis smiles at her. “I _insist_. Come on, let me be chivalrous. Especially after I made you cry.”

Alex makes a face. She lets out a long sigh. “About that. Don’t worry about it. It was a long time coming. With the stress of the kidnapping and Strand being sick and me not sleeping— Look, it’s a wonder it didn’t happen sooner.”

Tannis transfers eggs from the frying pan onto the waiting plates. He turns off the burner and sets the frying pan aside to cool. “No, don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“You have every right to be upset with me. Like I told Richard, I assumed—”

Alex freezes, her smile stuck in rictus. “You told Richard?” 

“No, no, no,” Tannis says, quickly. “I wouldn’t do that to you. Not after I—No, I only explained that I hadn’t meant to hurt you. Your secret is safe, except for the fact Richard now knows there is a secret.”

Alex allows herself to lean her hip against the counter, subtly letting it take her weight. Her knees have gone numb, something they do when she’s overwhelmed with nerves, usually on the eve of dropping a major story. She looks at the closed door of Strand’s bedroom. “I guess now’s as good a time as any.”

Tannis has that scolded puppy look on his face again. “I really am sorry, Alex.”

“I know.” She rolls her eyes and straightens. “It really is difficult to stay mad at you, you know.”

Tannis tries not to smile, but it’s a battle his face loses as the grin blossoms across his lips. “It’s part of my charm. Now, grab a plate before it gets cold.”

“Hand me another fork? I’ll take Strand his plate.”

Tannis digs through the cutlery drawer for forks and offers two to Alex. “Are you sure? As penance, I could brave the lion’s den.”

“No,” Alex says, balancing the two plates of eggs and toast. “Thank you, though. I should probably just...get this over with. Pull off the band-aid, as they say.”

“I’m rooting for you. Whatever the outcome.”

Alex clamps down desperately on a comment about him being able to forsee the outcome. Even if he could, she doesn’t want to know it. Not from him.

Juggling the plates, Alex knocks softly on Strand’s bedroom door. 

“Come in,” Strand says, just as softly.

Alex slips through the door and closes it behind her, leaving Tannis to eat his breakfast alone.

 

Strand sits on the bed, Alex’s book open on his lap. He looks as if he started reading it, but the story couldn’t hold his attention. 

Or, perhaps, his attention is arrested somewhere else.

“Hi,” Alex says.

“Hello.” 

Alex holds up a plate. “I brought food.”

Strand closes the book without marking his place and places it on the table where Alex left it the night before. “You didn’t have to go through the trouble—”

“I didn't,” Alex interrupts. “Tannis made it. I think it was an apology. Of sorts. Or maybe he just got tired of my sad attempts at cooking. It’s...not really my forte.”

A small smile tugs at his lips. “I know.”

Alex smiles. It’s not exactly a secret at the office that Alex’s cooking is to be avoided, at all costs. How she’s survived this long living on her own is a mystery. 

Alex crosses the room and carefully passes a plate to Strand. She sits in her chair and they both eat in silence, the air between them heavy with all the things she intends to say.

Strand manages to eat most of what’s on his plate before he sets it down. He’s only able to eat small portions and only of the blandest of food, but least he’s eating. He needs his strength in order to fully recover from his ordeal.

Alex, however, destroys her breakfast, rather than eat it. She tears through the egg yolk, letting it run over her plate. She sops most of it up with her toast, then lets the bread sit until it’s too soggy for her to eat. She, too, sets the plate down and studies her empty lap.

“Richard, I—” 

“Alex, I—”

Alex laughs. 

Strand raises a brow.

Alex shakes her head. “It’s nothing. It’s just, I want—no, sorry, I _need_ to go first.”

“Alright.”

“And I need you to know that whatever I say, it doesn’t have to change anything between us, okay? I don’t want you to feel pressured or feel like you need to say anything back or...or anything.”

Strand opens his mouth, his brow drawn down, but Alex holds up a hand. “Just listen. For now. Okay?”

Strand nods. 

“I love you.”

Strand’s eyes go wide. 

Alex rushes on. “I didn’t know it, at first. I thought—I don’t know—I thought I was just fascinated by you, by your life, because of the podcast. That I was just chasing the story for the story’s sake. And, for a while, maybe, I was. Except—I started feeling this, this _protectiveness_ over you that I’ve never felt for any of my other subjects before. And I would think about you. All the time. I’d wait by the phone for your call. I’d count down the days before I could see you again. It _literally_ tore me apart any time you left, not knowing whether you’d agree to come back. And knowing that some of those times you were gone, that I was the direct cause of it, it _hurt_.”

Alex smiles, bittersweet. “And then, things were good. And I didn’t want to ruin that. So, I kept it to myself.”

“Alex—” His voice is low, warm, and rich. His hand twitches on his lap. 

“Except,” Alex continues, before he can say anything, “ _somehow_ , Tannis figured it out. This morning, when he said my secret was out, _that’s_ the secret he was referring to.”

Silence washes over them. Alex sits in it, twisting her hands together on her lap, fighting against the current of anxiety threatening to convince her it would have been better if she just kept her mouth shut. “Like I said, this doesn’t have to change anything. I’m a big girl and I can—”

“What if I want it to? To change?”

Alex sucks in a breath. “You—what?” 

He slides his hand toward her, palm facing up. Alex places her hand in his. He grasps it and, like Alex had the night before, squeezes it. “I...love you, Alex.”

His shoulders sag, as if he’s let the entire weight of the world slip away from them. His blue, blue eyes stare into her own and Alex wonders how she hadn’t ever seen it before.

Respect.

Admiration.

_Love_.

A shy smile tugs at her lips. “You do?”

His smile mirrors her own, small, but happy. “I love you, Alex Reagan.”

He raises their clasped hands to his mouth and presses a chaste kiss along her knuckles.

Alex closes her eyes, savoring it. 

“It’s been a long time,” he says, “since I shared myself completely with another person. I convinced myself it was for the best to— to keep others at a distance. To keep them safe. To keep _myself_ safe. After Coralee—” He shakes his head. “What I mean to say is, I may be in need of practice, on my part. And, perhaps, patience, on yours. If you do choose to—if you chose me.” 

“This is a huge conflict of interest,” Alex says.

Strand deflates, but he pulls himself together quickly. “I see.”

He tries to slip his hand out from hers, but Alex holds tight. She grins. “I mean, Nic is absolutely going to kill me for this.”

She kisses him.

Leaning into his space, going slow enough for him to push her away, Alex presses her lips to his.

Strand sighs, melting into the kiss. He meets her, pressure for pressure, soft and warm and complete. His free hand—the one not still tangled with her own—comes to rest on her cheek, his thumb sweeping back and forth across the swell of her cheekbone. 

And when Alex pulls away, he rests his forehead against hers, eyes closed, and breathes out a short laugh, full of relief. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ewww, feelings~~~~~
> 
> just...remember what i said at the top, okay? i'm not at fault for any cavities formed while reading this tooth-rotting fluff, i'm not!
> 
> (happy balentime's day)


	15. Chapter 15

When Tannis compared Richard’s room to a lion’s den, he hadn’t meant it literally. Except, over the course of the next three days, the comparison becomes remarkably apt. Not because he’s threatened to maul anyone—not yet, anyway. But the way he _paces_ reminds Tannis of a lion pacing the length of his enclosure.

Richard, it seems, does not suffer boredom lightly. Not even with his new lady-love by his side. 

His new lady-love, Alex Reagan, who watches Richard out of the corner of her eye, a subtle smirk on her face as she slowly works through the little library provided by their safe house. Who, occasionally, on _purpose_ , sets Richard off on a rant about previous cases he’s worked on, just to rile him up.

There is the slightest chance she does it to give Richard something other than their so-called captivity to focus on. Call it enrichment, or whatever zoos do to keep their lions happy, but Tannis, in all his wisdom, is convinced it must be some form of masochism. Because, for some reason, Alex _likes_ seeing Richard passionately argue cases against little old ladies who claim ghosts haunt their houses, as evidenced by the unlucky shuffle of their solitaire cards.

(Tannis may have made that story up. It’s not like he’s actually listening. Because, _rude_.)

At least someone finds Richard’s antics amusing. He’s driving Tannis to distraction. Because, with all of Richard’s carefully constructed barriers yet to be rebuilt, without him consciously knowing _how_ to rebuild them, Richard’s thoughts and feelings are all a-whirl. In response, Tannis has had to carefully maintain his own barriers. Which, as he explained to Coralee, makes it much more difficult for Tannis use his gift to locate the hidden members of the Cenophaes.

The distraction does not come from, as he further explained to Coralee, Tannis’s _reluctance_ to ask Richard for help. 

Even if his distraction did stem from that reluctance, it would only be the teeniest, tiniest fraction of an amount. Because it is _just_ reluctance. Not fear, as Coralee is so fond of suggesting. 

Tannis isn’t _afraid_ of Richard.

He’s not.

“Braun.”

Tannis jumps. Like something straight out of NASA, his heartbeat rockets the actual organ skyward, where it gets lodged in his throat. He turns, slowly, so as not to make any more sudden movements.

The lion is standing right behind him. The lion raises an expressive eyebrow, his mouth turned down in a frown.

“Yes, Richard?” Tannis pastes a smile onto his face. “What can I do for you?”

“I want to speak with Coralee.”

Tannis blanches. He can’t help it. It’s his face’s natural reaction whenever Richard mentions Coralee. 

Richard still doesn’t know.

And Tannis refuses to be the one to tell him.

And there may only be the most tenuous of promises from Coralee to tell Richard once the Cenophaes have been dealt with and not a second before. 

Even if Alex and Richard are an item—are the kids still calling it that these days?—Tannis will still have to endure the blow-back to what Richard will almost certainly see as a betrayal. Tannis would much rather be able to run to safety should the lion decide to go ahead and maul him. Or, to get out of immediate punching range, at the very least. 

Richard misreads Tannis’s expression. He frowns harder. “We cannot continue to sit here, accomplishing nothing. There must be some kind of assistance we can provide.”

“Coralee says to just sit tight. She has a team working around the clock. The best thing we can do to help is to stay out of their way.”

Richard’s eyes narrow. “Alex is a journalist and you are a...passable investigator. Between the three of us, there must be something we can do.”

Tannis shakes his head, both in awe of such a backhanded compliment from Richard and to convince him that no, there really is nothing to do. Nothing, but sit and wait.

Even if the latter is a lie. And perhaps the former, given Tannis’s gift does much of the work for him.

“We’ve been here over a week,” Richard says. 

“And we might be here another week. And another. This kind of work takes time. And they need to be careful. After the first strike, the Cenophaes are more than likely looking to strike back.”

“And by strike, you mean?” Richard shifts to look through the open door of his bedroom, making sure Alex is still sprawled across the bed, occupied with the pen and spare pad of paper she found in the Games & Activities closet, writing down detailed notes for her podcast. He lowers his voice. “Alex refuses to elaborate.”

“They’re dead, Richard.”

Richard blinks, but Tannis feels nothing of the guilt Alex still harbors coming from him. Only surprise. And a vague satisfaction. And a slight _hint_ of existential horror at feeling nothing but surprise and a vague satisfaction.

“It’s alright. They’re not worth mourning. Not after everything they’ve done.” Tannis shrugs. “In fact, you’re allowed to celebrate after what they’ve done to you, especially. I know I will once they’ve all been scrubbed from this earth.”

Richard stares at Tannis, then shakes his head. “Still. I would like to speak with Coralee when you next check in.”

Tannis tries not to blanch again. Better to throw the lion a bone than to continue the argument. “I’ll, uh, let her know.”

Richard stares at Tannis for what feels like another full minute, before he turns and strides back into the bedroom, leaving the door ajar.

Alex looks at Richard and smiles. She tries to hide a grin at his sour expression behind her hand, before going back to her notes.

And the lion continues to pace.

 

Tannis holes himself away in the guest bedroom—now his bedroom, _hurray_ —when it comes time to check in with Coralee.

Alex and Richard know this is the agreed upon time. They know, if they cannot find Tannis fiddling unsuccessfully with his puzzle, or in the kitchen, or even the bathroom, that he can be found in the guest bedroom. Tannis knows they know. Alex and Richard know Tannis knows that they know.

And still, he holes himself away anyway, thinking perhaps he can get away with a quick update before Richard can demand to speak with his ex-wife. 

“You’re being ridiculous,” Coralee says. Her voice has the edge it gets when she hasn’t been sleeping, too caught up in a mission to rest.

Guilt gnaws on Tannis, like a dog with a bone. “I know. But it took Richard being kidnapped and subsequently rescued for Alex to believe and she’s not the self-identified skeptic.”

“Why haven’t you asked Alex to help you?”

“Because I don’t think even she could convince him. You know how it is with Richard. He’s run out on her podcast how many times, just at the mere suggestion something extra-natural is going on? He’ll lock himself up in his bedroom and Alex will kick me out of my hard-won bed and I’ll be back to surfing on the couch.”

“Now you’re being dramatic. We’ll have to move you in a week, if we don’t make any progress. I’ll try to find somewhere with an extra bed, if it matters that much to you.”

“That’s...no.” Tannis sighs. “That’s not the point.”

“And now, you’re back to making sense.”

Tannis laughs. “I’m a man of many talents.”

“Then, let me talk to him.” The edge has gone from exhausted to determined. “This waiting has gone on long enough.”

“But—”

“I want this _over_ , Tannis. I want the danger to be over with. I want Richard to be able to live the rest of his life without constantly looking over his shoulder. And I want...I want you to come home, Tannis.”

 _Home_.

Tannis closes his eyes, savoring the word, savoring the feeling behind it. “I want that, too.”

“Then, hand Richard the phone. Please.” 

Tannis sighs. “Okay. Fine.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. If you somehow manage to convince him to go against a lifetime of disbelief, I still have to be the one to teach him to use a gift he’s been actively denying since he was sixteen. That’s not going to be easy, to say the least.”

“Then I’ll wish us both luck. And, Tannis?”

Tannis perks up. “Yes?”

“I love you.”

Warmth spreads through Tannis’s body. He’s still not used to hearing those three little words from her. He still cherishes them each and every time she utters them, soft and almost disbelieving, as if she never thought she’d love another soul after Richard. “I love you, too.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a quick note: as always, check the tags before reading new chapters, as i update the tags as they become relevant

“No.”

Coralee sighs. “You’re being childish.”

“And you’re being absurd,” Richard nearly growls.

As much as she loves Richard, as much as she’s missed him over the years, she has not missed fighting with him.

At least Charlie can’t hear them, now. It always broke Coralee’s heart to find her perched at the top of the stairs, tears streaming down her face, sobbing silently into the crown of her favorite teddy bear.

Does Charlie still have Mr. Snuggles? Does he have a special place in her apartment in Italy? Does she ever look at him and remember the time Coralee gifted him to her, back when Richard finally agreed to introduce his daughter to the woman he’d been dating for six months?

Coralee shakes her head, clearing away pangs of nostalgia. “Is it absurd? Or is it that you’re still afraid to go against your father, after all these years?” 

Richard takes a sharp breath, like Coralee’s words physically cut him. 

Guilt flares, but it’s gone just as quickly as it comes. More rides on convincing Richard in the truth of his gift than his hurt feelings. Lives, specifically. And not just his life. Coralee has an entire team who deserve more than to live out their lives in hiding.

“You don’t have to be afraid of him anymore,” Coralee continues. “He can’t hurt you. Not with his words or with his hands or with the strap. And he hasn’t been able to in a long, long time.”

“I am not afraid of my father.”

“No?”

“No,” he grinds out, between his teeth.

“Then what’s stopping you from doing this one thing?”

“Decades of research,” he says. “My entire professional career. Common sense. Take your pick.”

“Do me a favor. Think of something only _you_ would know. Think about it hard. As hard as you can. And then ask Tannis to describe it.”

“This is ridiculous. No. No, it’s more than ridiculous. It’s _insane_.” He pauses, then continues, accusing. “Did he put you up to this?”

Coralee sighs, again. “Did who put me up to what?”

“Braun. Is this some sort of elaborate—”

“Do you _really_ think I’d stage your kidnapping? Do you think—”

“You staged your own,” he breaks in, angry now. “Or did you think I’ve forgotten how you let me believe you were dead?” 

“I’m sorry. It was necessary. Just like it’s necessary now for you to just shut up and _think_ , okay? Something only you would know about. Not Alex, not me, not Tannis. Something no one could possibly guess. Okay? Can you do that?”

Richard doesn’t say anything.

“Can you do that?” Coralee asks, willing herself to be patient.

“I’m thinking,” he grumbles.

Coralee sends up a silent prayer of thanks to Tiamat or whoever else might be listening. “Okay, good. Do that.”

For the next minute, Coralee hears only the soft exhale of his breath through the phone’s receiver. Then, muffled, Richard says, “Braun.”

Tannis’s reply is too far for Coralee to pick up. Burner phones aren’t exactly known for their audio quality. But Coralee picks up Richard’s startled, “How—?” 

“You know how,” Coralee says. “If not in that brain of yours, you know it in your heart.”

His releases a shaky breath. “I’m not. I’m not psychic.”

“Let it go, Richard. The denial. The pain. Let it go. Howard is gone. He can’t hurt you. And you can’t—you can’t please him, anymore.” Coralee smiles, sadly. “You can’t make him love you anymore now than you could when you were a child.” 

Silence. Pained, awful silence. And then:

“I—I have to go.” 

She doesn’t get the opportunity to say anything more before the line goes dead. 

She’s not surprised. Richard’s favorite way to deal with interpersonal conflict is to run. She can’t count how many times he’d retreated to his office to sleep whenever there were bumps in their marriage. More so in the later years, as Coralee became more entrenched in cult business. And ever more after Coralee realized she had to leave Richard and Charlie and that the only way she could do that and keep them both safe was to fake her own death.

Coralee goes to her bed and lets herself fall back onto the mattress. She stares at the ceiling. She’ll have to get up, she’ll have to go back to her team, she’ll have to continue doing what they’ve been doing since they rescued Richard, but at least she planted the seeds. Perhaps, if the’re extremely lucky and Richard doesn’t shut down, if he doesn’t retreat back into his shell of disbelief, they’ll have another tool at their disposal in their fight.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. There are too many ‘perhaps’ to count. And not many they can count upon.

But, _perhaps_ the fight will be over soon.

 

Strand ends the call. Phone clenched in his hand, he lowers it to his side, slowly, mechanically, like a puppet at the end of poorly controlled strings.

His skin has always been pale, but now he looks gray. Almost as if he’s seen a ghost.

“Hey,” Alex says, rising from the sofa. “Are you okay? Do you need to sit down?”

His eyes flick to her, but land on Tannis, who stands by the window, his hands tucked in his pockets, looking as if he’d rather be swallowed up by the floor.

Tannis had said, “She let it happen. Only when it was over, would she try to comfort you. And over time, you stopped letting her.”

Alex doesn’t know what those words are in reference to, but it doesn’t take her three guesses to know Tannis had used his gift. And whatever he’d plucked out of Strand’s brain, it was enough to throw Strand for a serious loop.

“Richard?” Alex tries.

“I’m sorry,” Tannis says. “I knew she would ask, but I didn’t—I didn’t know you would pick—”

“Pick what?” Alex asks, when Strand doesn’t reply.

Tannis shakes his head. He doesn’t even look at her. “I’m _sorry_ , Richard.”

Strand clears his throat. Then, he clenches and unclenches his fists. He finally breaks eye contact with Tannis and smiles weakly at Alex. “Would you excuse me?”

He turns and almost staggers into the master bedroom.

The door closes behind him with a soft click.

Alex whirls on Tannis, who flinches. “What just happened?”

Like a fish desperately gasping for air, Tannis’s mouth opens and closes. “I— I— I have to go. I’m sorry.”

Despite his words, there’s nowhere for him to go. So, he ducks into the guest room, the room he’s claimed as his now that Alex has been bunking with Strand, and closes the door.

Alex stares between both closed doors, at a loss for what to do. As much as she wants to check on Strand and as much as she wants to charge into Tannis’s room to demand answers, both men obviously need time to find their composure.

Alex sighs. She sits down at Tannis’s half-complete puzzle and picks up a piece.

Nothing to do, but wait.

As if she hasn’t been waiting since Strand was first kidnapped. First on the police and then on Coralee and her team and now this, whatever this is.

She’s no better at waiting now than she was then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ehehehehehehehehe


	17. Chapter 17

Alex eats a lonely dinner at the small dining room table. Between spoonfuls of soup, she eyes the closed bedroom doors with the vague hope the smell of microwaved chicken noodle will be enough to tempt either man in the rooms beyond them into joining her.

No such luck, apparently. Alex scrapes at the bottom of her bowl, but still, she is alone. 

Hours ago, she knocked, tentatively on Strand’s door. When there was no answer, she knocked on the door to Tannis’s room. He’d opened it just a crack, his eyes bloodshot, and shook his head. He’d said, “It’s not my pain,” and closed the door again.

After that, Alex had gone back to the puzzle. She’d made some headway on it, but most of all, she sat and watched Strand’s door, willing him to talk to her.

She’s never missed being able to talk to her mom in all her life. 

Alex is busy and her mom knows that, so they have an unspoken appointment to catch up on Sundays. But if Alex is having a bad day, if she needs to know what temperature at which to bake (or attempt to bake) her grandmother’s famous sugar cookie recipe, or, on the rare occasion she needs advice about _boys_ (her mother’s words), her mother is always only a phone call away.

Alex has missed the last two Sunday appointments. And she can only guess at what her mother would tell her to do about Strand.

Which leaves Alex feeling all the more alone.

Alex checks the time on the microwave. It’s after nine. She’d eaten late, but time has almost lost all meaning in the safe house. With nowhere to go and nothing pressing to do, Alex wakes when she wants, eats when she wants, and goes to sleep when she wants. 

Without the threat of the Cenophaes finding them, without the addition of Strand and Tannis, this is almost the exact vacation Nic and her sleep therapist wanted her to have. Unplugged. Untethered. Unproductive.

Has it really been over a year since she convinced herself spending weeks alone in a cabin in the woods would be good for her? Clearly, she needs to go back in time and invite Strand and Tannis on the retreat, as well, because while she’s never been in more danger, while she’s never been so simultaneously _bored_ , she hasn’t slept as well as she has since they rescued Strand. Or as soundly as she’s slept by Strand’s side over the last few days. 

Alex leans back in her chair. Her belly is full and warm from the soup. Her body is pleasantly heavy. Her grandmother always did say chicken noodle soup was good for the soul. She’d referred to her own secret recipe, and not a condensed can of Campbell's, but Alex made do with what she had.

Should she bring a bowl to Strand?

Alex shakes her head with a soft laugh. Ridiculous to think she could fix whatever emotional discord he’s experiencing with a bit of soup.

But, perhaps, it’s time she quit stalling. Because, really, that’s what she’s been doing for the last few hours. She already knows, if she’s being honest with herself, what she needs to do.

Alex rinses out her bowl in the sink and sets it aside to dry. 

She knocks on Strand’s door.

He doesn’t answer, but Alex knew he wouldn’t.

She cracks the door open to a dark room, lit only by a valiant shaft of moonlight. “It’s me. Alex. I’m coming in.”

She steps carefully through the room until she reaches what has quickly come to be her side of the bed. The mattress dips as she sits on the edge. “Richard?”

The blanket shifts. Strand looks at her through bleary eyes. He must have fallen asleep. “What time is it?”

“Around nine-thirty. Mind if I join you?”

He makes a sleepy sound, which Alex takes for ascent. She climbs beneath the blanket and rolls onto her side, so they face front-to-front. She slips her arm around his waist and tucks herself against his side. Strand’s arm wraps around her shoulder, bringing her all the more close.

They lay together in silence. Alex can tell by Strand’s breathing that he hasn’t fallen back to sleep. 

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“For what?” he rumbles, voice reverberating in her chest.

“I should have come to check on you sooner. You’ve been miserable, but you didn’t have to be both alone _and_ miserable.”

“Alex—”

“No,” she continues. “Wait. I just want you to know—I _know_ I can be nosy. And pushy. And that’s just being polite about it. But, if this is going to work out between us, I need you to know that you can tell me things. Or not. And if it’s the not, I’ll try to back off. Okay? But I also need you to know that I’m here for you. So if you just want to curl up and get away from the world for a while, know that I’m ready and willing to curl up with you.”

He swallows. His jaw works, but, in the end, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he crushes her to him, his nose buried in her hair at the crown of her head.

Alex smiles. She tries to return the hug with as much vigor, but doesn’t want to hurt him. He doesn’t complain about it, but his ribs still bother him and likely won’t be fully healed for a handful of weeks.

Alex closes her eyes. She listens to the steady in-and-out of Strand’s breathing. She’s almost dozed off when he says, “You know this already, but as a child I suffered some abuse at the hands of my father.”

Alex doesn’t say anything. She hardly dares to breathe.

“A fair amount of abuse,” he continues. “It was as if I could never do anything right in his eyes. If I let my grades slip, if I was late coming home from school, if I didn’t complete my chores to his exact specifications, he would be there. Waiting.

“It began very early. He was quick to temper, even before the Cheryl tape. Before I saw—” 

He stops.

Alex runs her hand up and down his back. The warmth of his skin radiates through the thin cotton of his T-shirt.

“My mother—” He breathes in, long and slow. “My mother never did anything to stop him. But after he was done, after he was satisfied his lesson was well and truly understood, she would always come to me. She’d wash away the blood and the tears and she would hold me, until I fell asleep.”

His breath hitches. “I loved her. I also hated her. I couldn’t stand for her to touch me. So when she came to me, I turned her away. And, eventually, she stopped coming altogether.”

He doesn’t say anything for a long time. All the while, Alex continues to rub his back, switching to soothing circles.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, eventually. And, then, unsure, she asks, “Is that what Tannis saw?”

“I—Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’ve never told anyone. And Cheryl—she wouldn’t.”

“She told me,” Alex says, carefully. “About the strap.”

Strand shifts when Alex’s hand catches the hem of his T-shirt, when her hand meets the bare skin of his back. Alex stills the movement of her hand, except for the back-and-forth sweep of her thumb. 

Strand sighs. “But not about my mother. She was always very close with my mother. They bonded over my father’s lack of interest. And my resentment towards them both. My father never touched Cheryl.”

Alex kisses the scruff along his jaw. “So, you believe Tannis? In his gift?”

“It seems I must.”

Alex smiles. “It sure seems that way, doesn’t it?”

He kisses her hair, then her temple. Her cheek, then the bridge of her nose. Then, finally, he presses his lips to hers. “Perhaps we should inform Braun.”

“Tomorrow?” Alex asks. “Once we’ve all had a good night’s sleep?”

“Tomorrow,” he agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you ever sit there, thinking about a fic, dying to know what happens next, but the dang thing hasn't updated yet?
> 
> that was me with this fic. so, i've gifted this chapter to you on the heels of the last update because i was DYING to know what was going to happen and the only person i could blame for not having written/updated it yet was MYSELF. hope you like it and, for anyone who hadn't caught what exactly Tannis saw in the last chapter, i hope this answered any questions you had >:}


	18. Chapter 18

Inside the circle of Richard Strand’s arms, Alex sleeps soundly. Her face is pressed into his chest with one arm tucked between them. The other arm is thrown across his middle with her fingers tucked beneath his shirt, fingertips twitching sleepily against the bare skin of his lower back. Her legs are tangled with his.

The sun rises, as it’s wont to do. It peers into the bedroom first with a vague curiosity, and then with a bright, shining insistence. 

He’s a man who has championed the proper order of the universe for the majority of his life. But, now, lying in bed with the woman he loves—with the woman who loves him back—Strand has never wished more fervently that he could stop time. That he could put the day on hold. 

He never thought to have this again. 

This warmth.

This affection.

This profound intimacy.

He’s still afraid, days after Alex’s confession, that she’ll disappear. That he’ll wake up and, like a figment of his dreams, she’ll be gone. Or, that he’s still tied to a chair in an abandoned office park, needles pricking his arms. That the vision of Alex in his arms is nothing but a vivid hallucination brought on by the drugs coursing through his system.

He shifts, and the physical weight of her body stems some of that fear. She sighs against his T-shirt, her breath leaving a circle of warm and damp in the lightweight cotton.

His fears aren’t completely assuaged, however. Not now that Alex knows.

Alex knows _everything_.

About Howard and Charlotte Strand. About Richard Strand’s very own unhappy childhood. About his strange dreams. About the boy and the river. She knows about Tiamat, and the Cenophaes, and the ritual.

What if, knowing everything she now knows, she doesn’t disappear, but runs? What if she weighs the pros and the cons of loving him and finds him too old, too damaged, too _flawed_? What, then?

Strand breathes in the cheap travel shampoo smell of Alex’s hair. He never thought to have this again. And neither does he know how long it will last.

But the universe runs according to its own laws. Time flows, unrelenting, in its linear fashion. The day breaks, the city wakes beyond their safe house, and Braun moves around on the other side of Alex and Strand’s closed door.

Strand sighs and, gently, so very gently, extricates himself from Alex’s embrace. He slides his glasses onto his nose and pads across the room. He slips out, leaving the door cracked, just as Alex likes it.

From his place on the floor by the coffee table, examining his jigsaw puzzle, Braun looks up. His expression goes instantly from slack to guarded, his entire body tensing, as if bracing for a physical blow.

“Good morning,” Strand says. He clears his throat.

“‘Morning,” Braun replies, uncertain. “There’s, uh, coffee. If you want it.”

Strand nods. He fixes himself a mug, splashing milk and adding sugar by the spoonful. He brews a fresh carafe for Alex, for when she wakes. 

Strand takes his coffee and sits in the armchair. It’s Alex’s favorite spot, the place where she would sleep when Strand was still ill, before she told him she loved him. Before they started sleeping together. 

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Braun asks, eyes glued to his puzzle.

“What?”

“Back in real life, we go out of our way to find ways to sleep in. But, here, where there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do, both of us are wide awake, bright and early.”

Strand snorts. He takes a slow sip of coffee. “My sleep has been rather...disturbed, of late.”

Braun winces. 

Strand frowns. “It was better. They were better. My dreams. Before I was kidnapped. They stopped being so…”

“Real?” Braun asks, when Strand doesn’t finish his sentence. 

Strand swirls the coffee in his mug. It’s easier to watch the slosh of the liquid than to look at Braun’s face. “Yes. After Bobby Maimes. They stopped being so _real_ after I found his body. After...”

He trails off again, unwilling to describe the beating he received after he’d found Bobby’s body on the banks of Redbank Creek. After the police held him for questioning and he was finally released, at the insistence of his family’s lawyer. 

It’s likely Braun sees it, away.

Bitterness floods his mouth, overpowering the sweetness of the coffee.

“I know you don’t want— I know— It’s hard to explain,” Braun says, halting and unsure. 

“Braun,” Strand says. He forces himself to look at the other man.

Braun’s lips thin as he looks at Strand, searching. 

His shoulders relax, as if he’s found whatever it was he was looking for. “Think of it like a fence. There are many different kinds of fences. Chainlink, wood, stone—”

“I know what a fence is.”

Braun laughs. “Right. Well, what I’m getting at is some fences are more flimsy than others. And yours, the one you had built before the kidnapping, it was like steel. Stronger, maybe. Impenetrable, like Fort Knox. No getting in. No getting out.” 

“And now?”

“A few fence posts, here and there. But, mostly, non-existent.”

“And you can—?” 

Braun shakes his head. “I can’t read thoughts. Not like that. I get impressions of thoughts and feelings, which I have to interpret on my own. Except—” Braun twirls a puzzle piece in his fingers. He picks at the image, where it has been poorly glued to the cardboard. 

Strand grips his leg, just above the kneecap, fingers digging into his skin. “Except?”

“Except you’re a lot stronger than the psychics I’ve known. Sometimes, I get more than just impressions from you. Like, entire experiences. Dreams. Memories.”

Strand swallows around the lump in his throat. “Such as?”

“The Arctic, for one. You, in your dreams, crawling over ice and snow and rock. Crawling until you’re too frozen to move. Falling into that infinite void thing. I couldn’t stop shivering for two days while you were going through withdrawal. You kept dreaming that same dream, over and over.”

Strand reaches for the dream of the Arctic, but it’s hazy. The void, however, he recalls from his time held captive. He drifted through that infinite space every time a needle was stuck into his arm. “And how do I stop?”

“It won’t be like it was before. Not right away, anyway. And, if you’re really set on helping us, your defenses will have to be built on a completely different foundation. No more denial, no more fear, no more Fort Knox.”

At Strand’s glare, Braun shrugs. “It’s not uncommon for psychics to deny their nature. I call it a gift, but others have certainly called it a curse. You’re not the first to suppress it, just the first I’ve seen to have suppressed it so completely.”

Strand fights against a thrill of pride. Braun doesn’t mean to compliment him. And Strand cannot simply shut all of it out anymore.

Not if he wants to see the end of the Cenophaes.

Not if he wants to be _free_.

“I’m not certain I know how,” Strand says.

Braun winces. “Unfortunately, that’s where I come in.”

As much as it pains Strand to defer to Braun in anything, it makes sense to defer to the other man. If only in this one case. “You are the expert.”

“Aw, Richard. That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Don’t push it,” Strand says. He knocks back the rest of his coffee and stands. He goes to the kitchen to wash his mug and sets it in the drying rack in the sink.

He turns to find Braun watching him. “Richard…”

Strand tenses, already anticipating Braun’s next words.

“About last night—”

Strand shakes his head. “No.”

“I want to apologize.”

“Accepted.”

“Just hear me out, okay? I need to get this off my chest.”

Strand crosses his arms. “It’s fine.”

“It’s _not_. I normally try to block out whatever it is you’re thinking or feeling. Alex, too. But I knew what Coralee was going to ask you to do, so I left myself open. There was no way you could have known how _loudly_ you were going to project that memory. And I couldn’t have known you’d pick the memory you did.

“In any case, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what you went through. And I’m sorry I saw you in that moment, when you were tired and sad and hurt and vulnerable.”

Strand nods, unable to do anything else.

“It’s just not right, what happened to you.”

“I know.”

“I mean, how could—”

Strand shakes his head. “Braun. Thank you. But I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Right,” Braun seems to shake himself. “You’re right. Sorry.”

Strand uncrosses his arms. “It’s fine. I’m going to go take a shower. We can reconvene after Alex is awake.”

Braun gives a lopsided salute and then seems to mentally berate himself for doing so, by the way his expression twists, as if he’s swallowed a lemon. “I’ll be here.”

Strand allows one corner of his mouth to lift into a wry smile. He slips into the master bedroom, but instead of heading for the suitcase packed for him by Alex and Braun, Strand returns to the bed.

Alex rolls onto her back, squinting at him. “Everything okay?”

She stretches, her tank top riding up, showing off a panel of freckled skin. 

Strand drags his eyes back to her face and smiles. He climbs onto the bed and scoops her into his arms. “Everything is fine. Go back to sleep.”

“Mm,” she says, settling in, her head pillowed on his chest.

He smooths the hair at the crown of her head until she relaxes back into sleep.

Braun and the rest of the world can wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kept tweaking this bad boy, but sometimes you just gotta let it go be out in the world so you can move on with your life and your plot. so here it is! slightly longer than my usual chapter and everything!
> 
> hope you like~~


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you thought the last chapter was domestic, you ain't seen nothing yet. 
> 
> also, plot!

Alex wakes a second time, but this time, it’s to a single ray of sunshine falling across her face. She scrunches her nose at it, briefly considering flipping it the bird. She settles on burying her face in Strand’s chest with a muffled groan.

Strand laughs, sweet and breathy. He runs his fingers through her hair. His short nails scritch at her scalp and Alex sighs, going boneless where she lays, half on top of him. 

“That’s nice,” she says, voice muffled by his T-shirt.

Strand hums in answer. He switches to massaging the base of her skull, the gentle pressure of his fingers to relieve tension Alex didn’t even know she was holding onto.

Warmth spreads across her skin, radiating from his touch. His hand moves lower, alternating between stroking and kneading the space between her shoulder blades. He moves outward, as much as he can with the awkward angle, with one arm trapped underneath Alex, rubbing in soothing circles.

“I love you,” she murmurs.

He freezes. Just for one second, just long enough for Alex to catch it. And then his hand is back in her hair, carding through her tresses. 

“I love you,” he says, just as quiet. There’s something solumn about it, something almost reverent. 

Alex smiles. She plants a kiss over his heart through his T-shirt. Then, thinking better of it, she rearranges herself so she can cup his stubbled jaw and kiss him properly.

 

By the time they both emerge from the bedroom, showered, and in Strand’s case, shaved, it’s almost noon. She and Strand catnapped most of the morning away, trading lazy kisses each time they noticed the other was awake.

Even being the most rested she’s felt in her entire life, Alex heads straight for the coffee pot, the coffee inside long since gone cold. She pours herself a mug anyway, sticking it into the microwave to heat. Impatient for her caffeine fix, she watches as it spins in a few lazy circles, taking it out of the microwave with one second left to spare.

Strand takes his turn at the microwave, heating water for tea. More patient than Alex, he waits for the microwave’s _beep beep beep_ before removing his own mug. He places one of the generic English Breakfast teabags into the water for it to steep, honey-bear on stand-by. 

Across the apartment, the door to the guest room opens and closes. Alex and Strand both look to see Tannis, his shirt wrinkled and his hair standing up on one side.

“Nice bedhead,” Alex says. She takes a careful sip of her coffee, careful not to burn her tongue. 

“You and Richard were taking your sweet time this morning, and rather than stare at that damn puzzle for one more minute, I took a nap. So sue me.”

“I think he might have woken up on the wrong side of the bed,” Alex says to Strand from behind her hand, sotto voce.

“It appears so,” Strand murmurs back.

Alex laughs, delighted, while Tannis feigns a look of abject betrayal.

“And here I thought we came to some sort of agreement, Richard. I’m hurt. I really am.”

Alex raises a brow at Strand, who shakes his head. “We had one conversation, Braun.”

“Where he agreed to be my pupil in the psychic arts,” Tannis tells Alex. “I think that’s important to mention.”

Alex raises both brows. “You did?” 

Strand frowns. “It seemed the appropriate solution.”

“Did you hear that, Alex?” Tannis asks, hands clasped over his heart. “He called me an appropriate solution.” He turns to Strand with a grin. “You really _do_ care.”

“I’m very happy for the both of you,” Alex says. 

She laughs at Strand’s why-me expression. Putting her hand on his arm, she squeezes. “Seriously, though. That’s good news.”

Strand’s lips lift on one side. He covers her hand with one of his, eyes going soft just for her. His thumb sweeps over her knuckles before he pulls away to finish making his tea.

She takes a drink from her coffee, but her stomach chooses then to grumble, hungry for real food. “I’m starving. Do you think we can talk over lunch? Preferably something other than soup and sandwiches?”

Both Alex and Tannis stare at Strand. Out of the three of them, he’s proved himself to be the more masterful cook, pulling together meals out of the staples Coralee’s people left them with that neither Alex nor Tannis would have thought possible.

Strand sighs. “I’ll see what I can do.”

 

While Strand cooks, filling the apartment with the delightful smells of a hearty brunch, Alex and Tannis sit on the floor on opposite sides of the coffee table. Alex contemplates the puzzle, which hasn’t seen much improvement since she worked on it the night before. Tannis glares at the piece held in his hand, then at the puzzle, looking at each with the expression of someone who has been terribly wronged.

“It’s not the puzzle’s fault you, you know,” Alex teases. She picks up a piece. “Here. This one goes right here.”

The piece slots into place.

Tannis waves a dismissive hand. “Pssh. I knew that. I was just saving that piece. To test you.”

“Sure.” Alex drags out the word. She fits another piece into the puzzle, completing a patch of yellow flowers.

“I’m very successful,” Tannis says. “I’ve solved _many_ missing persons cases over the years. I give talks, go on tour. I’ve even written books. Well, I’ve had books ghostwritten for me, but they have _my_ name on them. _And_ I’m part of a secret organization working on saving the entire world. So what if I can’t put together a stupid puzzle?”

Alex tries to keep the smile off her face, but a grin breaks through despite her best efforts. “Whatever you have to tell yourself.”

She places another piece, completing another patch of flowers.

Tannis pouts.

 

Strand makes omelettes, using shredded sandwich meats. Cheese oozes out of folded egg, melted to gooey perfection. On each plate also sits two stacked pieces of buttered toast, slathered with strawberry jam.

Alex eats until she’s pleasantly stuffed, then leans back in her chair, hands folded over her stomach. “So, how do we do this?”

“We?” Tannis asks, brows raised. “As far as I’m aware, you don’t have the gift.”

“I need notes for the podcast. Call it participant observation.” 

Tannis looks at Strand. “Are you okay with that? Because things are probably going to get a little...personal.”

Strand glances at Alex. “Alex already knows all of my secrets.”

“And it’s not like I’m going to be able to read his thoughts anyway,” she says.

Tannis tilts his head, considering this. “Alright. It may not be a bad thing you’re joining us. If you’re going to hang around with psychics, even if it’s just one in particular, you could benefit from some of the shielding exercises.”

“Shielding?” Alex asks.

“A basic concept, but an important one. Remember when I said I would try to keep your thoughts to yourself? Well, with some practice, you can make it so your thoughts don’t leak out for others to pick up on. Not perfectly, but it might come in handy later on.”

“Earlier,” Strand says, his expression a little sour, as if he can’t believe this is a conversation he is participating in of his own free will, “you described my own shields as nothing more than a few fence posts. How is it I don’t pick up on thoughts and feelings in the same manner you do?”

“Every psychic is different. When you were a boy, you didn’t tend to pick up on thoughts and feelings, did you?”

Strand shakes his head.

“And you’re not clairvoyant? You’ve never predicted the future?”

“No, never.” His words are edged with something bitter, as if so much in his life would be different if he could have predicted some of the events. 

Tannis shrugs. “Neither am I. Your gift seems to be rooted the most strongly in your dreams, but you’re also capable of projecting your thoughts outward.”

“What about the Tall Men?” Strand asks. “When I was a child, I was able to see—”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, but Cheryl’s description of the Tall Men is still fresh in Alex’s memory. As are the shadows she saw in the photos taken of Robert and Sebastien Torres.

“Demons,” Tannis says. “They were demons.”

Alex shudders. “Of course. Why does it always have to be demons?”

Strand’s frown thins into a hard line.

“If you want this to work, you’re going to need to be more open-minded,” Tannis says. “You might not like the idea, but what your sister described in Alex’s podcast was a demon.”

“And how was she able to see them?” Alex asks.

Strand frowns harder, as if this question never occurred to him.

Tannis shifts in his seat. He picks up his fork only to set it down again. “It’s possible she’s also psychic, that the gift runs in Richard’s family. She could have seen all that Richard went through and kept quiet about her own experiences.”

Something like betrayal flashes through Strand’s eyes. His hand slips from the table into his lap, where it balls into a fist. 

Alex reaches out to cover his hand with her own. It takes a little coaxing, but he lets her link their fingers together, their hands held in his lap.

“But,” Tannis stresses, “it’s also possible she’s not psychic. Kids are weird. They pick up on things. They’re able see what most adults can’t.”

“Like those Reddit posts, where parents describe all the creepy shit their kids have said or done,” Alex says.

Both Strand and Tannis look at her. 

“Reddit?” Tannis asks.

“It’s a website. Kind of like a forum? You’ve never heard of celebrities doing an AMA?”

“AMA?” Strand asks.

“Ask Me Anything?”

Blank stares.

“My producers did one for the podcast a while back? No? Ok, well, I’ll have to show you later, because some of those posts are wild.”

“Anyway,” Tannis says, shaking his head. “Back to our own AMA. Where, funnily enough, I can’t actually answer your question, Richard. Can you see demons as part of your gift? Did you stop seeing them because you outgrew the ability or because you suppressed it? We won’t know until you encounter one. _If_ you ever encounter one.”

“What happens if he does?” Alex asks, tightening her hold on his hand, fighting off flashbacks to the singular time she saw The Exorcist.

Tannis shrugs. “Get the hell out of dodge?” 

“Great,” Alex mutters. “That’s helpful.”

“As far as I know, you can’t banish them the same way you can banish a spirit. Why do you think I was so eager to get as far away from that cabin as I could?”

When they visited the cabin, Alex hadn’t wholly believed in Tannis’s gift. She held a certain, healthy amount of skepticism. Strand had strengthened that skepticism, giving her plenty of logical arguments against Tannis’s claims to be psychic. 

That episode had sparked questions in her listeners and Alex had read through blog posts, Facebook comments, Tumblr threads, and yes, even the TBTP subreddit. Still, Alex never really believed one way or the other.

Not until now.

She’s answered the central question of her podcast—”Do you believe?”—with the answer coming to a resounding _yes_.

Which is utterly _terrifying_ considering she stood in a cabin with a Demon Door leading to literal _Hell_ and described it to her listeners with nothing more than morbid fascination.

“Please, don’t remind me,” she says.

“The good news—yes, my friends, there is _some_ good news coming out of all of this—is this: When Coralee destroys the remaining Cenophaes, it’s likely we’ll find the means to close the Door Alex opened within Thomas’s research. No more Door, no more demons. So, there’s that to look forward to.”

“Thank god,” Alex says, which causes Strand to give her a look she remembers from the beginning of her podcast and their acquaintanceship. It’s the one he’d have on his face right before he’d launch into a speech proclaiming without religion, the human race would likely already be on Mars.

Alex grins at him. She squeezes the hand still held in his. “So, when do we start?” 

“I believe time is something of the essence,” Strand says.

“And since you two love-birds wasted half the day…” Tannis grins to show he’s joking, but his eyes have something serious in them.

Alex untangles her hand from Strand’s. She claps both her hands together, rubbing them a bit to show her excitement. “Then, I’m going to get my notepad. Don’t start without me!”

She runs to the bedroom, eager to begin.


End file.
